Silver City, NM

After two and a half weeks at home, we're off again. This trip, we're heading west starting with a three day weekend camping with my brother and his family in New Mexico. We drove to El Paso Wednesday and spent the night in the road in from of Ms. Rosie's house, my sister-in-law's mother. 

Thursday morning, we hung out with Joshua and then headed to Silver City in the afternoon. The kids have been super excited to see him and I think he really enjoyed them also.

Friday, we headed to the Gila Cliff Dwellings in the Gila National Forest. It was about a 1.5 hour drive from our campsite in Silver City and part of it was on an 18 mile long windy road up and then down a mountain. Brady and Adria felt car sick it was so windy. We ate lunch in the parking lot when we arrived.

The cliff dwellings are on the back side of that rock you can see in this picture. There is a short trail up and around to them.

Mike carried Josh on his back in a carrier...not easy on a hike up hill.

Not much is known about the people who lived here and the reasons they came and left. There is archaeological evidence that people have lived in this region for thousands of years but it is unknown why these people decided to live inside the caves. They were built by the Puebloan people sometime between 1276 and 1287 and were completely gone by 1300.

There are about 40 rooms built inside of five natural caves. The rooms were built with rock, mortar, and timber.

This is coming back down the trail looking toward the parking lot.

Because of the direction of the road, most of the pull-offs were on the right coming back from the Cliff Dwellings, so we stopped for some pictures on the way home.

Mike grilled burgers and hot dogs and we ate dinner in our RV Friday night. We went back over to Mike and Jenny's to try to make S'mores over the grill.

Saturday, we headed out to the Catwalk National Recreation Trail also in the Gila National Forest. In the late 1800s, mining in the mountains caused the development of a small town nearby which needed water to operate the electric generators. The water came from a pipeline that reached up into this canyon. The pipeline was held onto the rock walls of the canyon with timbers and iron bars.

Today, the trail follows the route of the old pipeline although much of the original pipe and timber is gone.

We arrived earlier today and none of us knew how long the trail was, so we packed in our lunch thinking we might be able to have a picnic somewhere along the way.

Aunt Jenny is crazy...the kids wanted to get up there too.

Josh did this forever. I think he literally would throw rocks in the water for hours. He loved it.

Once we got back near the parking lot, we stopped for lunch at some picnic tables near a stream.

We had cowboy soup that Jenny made over in their RV tonight while watching Turbo. Surprisingly, all three of the kids liked the soup and want me to make it sometime again. When they all like something that is reasonably healthy, that is a win.

Tomorrow we are planning on heading to Tucson to meet some family and then a day or two later, heading north to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.