Rocks, Silver, and Copper

Yesterday we finally left our wintering state of Arizona and ventured into New Mexico. We're in the little town of Deming at a park(!), but never fear, we don't have hookups. Today we took quite a trip to see some of the sites in the area.

We started with City of Rocks State Park, about 25 miles north of Deming. This collection of 'rock art' was formed by a huge volcanic eruption about 34 million years ago and the subsequent erosion.

There are some precarious balanced-rocks like this one that Ron is ready to catch.



We've all heard of woodpeckers, but here is evidence of rockpeckers.



Ron found a formation that looked like a duck!



After the state park, we made our way about another 25 miles up the road to the town of Silver City. The historic district has some beautiful old buildings, such as this one which is now the museum.



There were lots of trees in bloom and this giant agave (on the right, that's me in the middle.)



But I have to admit my favorite was this mariachi band that we found in the plaza!



On our way home, we detoured slightly to see the El Chino (or just Chino) Mine. The present day open-pit mining operation began in 1910. However Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans have all obtained copper from this site, once known as the Santa Rita mine. I know the picture doesn't show the size of this giant pit, but if you can see the tiny truck at the bottom, that's a huge thing that was wetting down the road surface.