May 15 & 16

May 15 Tom and my 47th anniversary today. ❤️ We are up and on the road by 8:00 am heading over to City of Rocks (known as Kneeling Nunn Tuff) located in Faywood NM. Driving Rt 25 for a few hundred miles. I’m noticing the hills around this area have flat tops. The flat tops of the plateaus were formed over a million years ago by powerful volcanic eruptions.
The aren’t many farms around here either. We did see an Apple Orchard near Bosque NM. This ride runs along the Rio Grande but we can’t see it from the road. We stopped in Deming to pick up some food. I wish we had the Mexican food choices at home like they do here.  We are about 1 1/2 hours from the campground. It’s 91 and sunny. We arrived at City Of Rocks a little after 2pm. Our campsite is so nice and a drive through which is a treat! There are Yucca plants and cacti everywhere and we have a cute little gazebo with picnic table. Surrounding the campground are huge rock formations and mountains. I walked around looking at the columnar landforms that are all through the campsite. It’s a beautiful and well kept campground. The restrooms/showers are awesome. The best we’ve seen yet.

May 16 - Heading out by 9 to drive to Gila Cliff Dwellings and then hopefully to Pinos Altos. It’s a beautiful 75° day and sunny. The ride to Gila Cliffs on Rt 15 is a small winding road and surprisingly wooded. It’s a high climbing and winding road for 43 miles. We passed Cherry Creek Campground along the way. This campground is very secluded and wooded. We arrived at Gila Cliff National Monument and took the mile long hike up along the mountain (18 stories high). This area is 6,000 feet above sea level. We definitely felt it climbing up. Glad we brought water. The temperature is now 94°. At the top we were able to enter some of the cliff dwellings. The ancient Puebloan people built these caves.

 Geronimo was born near the Gila River. By 1886 the US forced the last of the Apache people to the reservations. The caves are unbelievably cool and ingeniously crafted. I have such a deep respect for the Indian people. Some of the rock formations look like totem poles. I really love New Mexico. 

We ended up taking a different route back to the campground so we didn’t stop at Pinos Altos. 

The colors of the sides of the cliffs range from light yellows to deep pinks.