New Mexico State Parks

With only a couple of days to go on my trip, I traveled south on US 180, through Silver City towards Deming, NM. Stopped at City of the Rocks, still searching for a spot DH and I had visited years ago, but this was not the site. It was a very interesting place though, sparsely populated and quiet. I climbed amongst the rock forms for a while, mentally marking it for a nice place to camp some day.

The next stop was Rockhound State Park and a short drive away, Spring Canyon. I spent about two hours exploring the ledges and trails of Rockhound State Park. I had bought a small shovel, a "scratcher", and some leather gloves, so I would be prepared and could handle the rocks. Each visitor is allowed 15 pounds of rock. There is an amazing variety of semi-precious stones, thunder eggs, and geodes. I was wishing I had DH's old rock hammer and that he was there to tell me what I was seeing because, despite my sudden preparation, they all looked just like plain old rocks to me. I picked up about 15 pounds of them anyway.

The rock ledges were quite high and I got excellent cell phone connections for a while. I noticed a thunderstorm approaching and figured I would be a prime candidate for being the highest point around. I decided to leave.

Since my $5.00 pass was good all day for the State Parks in NM, I decided to venture down to Pancho Villa S.P. which was even further south on US 180. Even thought about visiting across the border in Mexico because it was so close, but didn't have time.

Pancho Villa SP was named in deference to "our good relations with Mexico" now. Panch Villa raided the area in 1916 and General "Black Jack" Pershing was sent to take care of the situation. Villa was not impressed.

Being down that far in N.M., I decided to travel toward El Paso via Highway 9. Look for that story under "Border Patrol."