Carl Henning

I think I visited here as a youngster. I vaguely remember millions of bats exiting the cave’s natural opening. How does Carlsbad Caverns National Park compare to other caves and caverns I’ve visited? It’s cavernous.

Home to the four highest peaks in Texas is Guadalupe Mountains National Park. And we saw them all, or at least the clouds that covered them all. And mistletoe.

City of Rocks State Park was on the trip down from Gila Cliff Dwellings to Deming, off a much better road. I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit here, but I didn’t have to. In the middle of empty meadows as far as the eye can see, suddenly there are rocks.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is a remote park with seven caves in the cliff face, six of them were occupied. When I say remote, I mean an hour and a quarter of twisting, narrow road north of Silver City. The Park Service says to allow two hours, but that must be for eastern flat landers. The road was too narrow to allow painted lines, but it was paved. The reason this place was on our itinerary is that you can enter the ruins; that’s rare.

Silver City, NM is not a city; it’s a town. Still operating under its original town charter which apparently regulates prostitution. No further inquiries on the topic were made! Silver City was the childhood home of Billy the Kid, leading to Marty Robbins singing about him: “,,,in old Silver City he went to the bad…”

Sometimes small museums in small towns can surprise you with the content. There were two today: Eastern Arizona Museum and Historical Society and Lordsburg-Hidalgo County Museum. The former in downtown Pima, AZ (west of Safford) and the latter in Lordsburg, NM. Yes, we’re on the road again, going places that we’ve never been.