June 26, 2010 Silver City to Albuquerque

Today was a travel day, but we still managed to find something new and different. We headed out of Silver City headed for northbound I-25 but to get there we first had to go 54 miles SE and then another 50 miles NE.
After what seemed like backtracking for an hour or so we finally arrived in Hatch, NM on I-25. Hatch boasts that it is the Chili Pepper Capital of the World and if they say so it must be true. Cousin John told me that there is a quirky little hamburger stand called Sparky's in Hatch. Sparky's speciality is the world famous green chili cheeseburger. While it was only 10:30 AM we couldn't forgo the opportunity to taste one of these treats. Betsy really liked hers. I liked mine until the green chili's kicked in. Whew!! We had to eat outside because of Tipper but the waitress came out and ask if she could bring him a treat. We said sure, and thought she would return with a doggie biscuit. Well, she returned with a bowl of pulled pork and she sat down and fed Tippy!! Now that's service.
The trip up I-25 was uneventful and we arrived at Enchanted Trails RV Park just in time for a rain squall.
Enchanted Trails is a "vintage friendly" RV park. They even have four vintage trailers that you can rent for the night. Cool.
Photo 1 Sparky's, Hatch, NM
Photo 2 Touch of class inside Sparky's
Photo 3 Hudson Super Six
Photo 4 Hudson Hornet

June 25, 2010 Pinos Altos, NM

Just six miles from Silver City is another mining town called Pinos Altos (Tall Pines). It's higher up in the mountains but much smaller in population. A group of forty-niners drifting home from CA discovered gold in Bear Creek and before you knew it a town had sprung up. When the gold was plentiful the population was around ten thousand but it's dwindled down to less than a thousand hardy souls. The buildings are somewhat ramshackle, a majority of the population appears to be in the geriatric hippie category. But you have to give the old town some credit as it's hanging in there. I wonder why many of the old mining towns seem to attract the hippie element? Actually I think I could be right in there with them, except Betsy has standards. We stopped at the community art gallery and we bought a small painting and it's found a place on the trailer bulkhead. We also found the US Post Office, ice cream parlor, small cafe, antique and collectible store. All of those enterprises were all in the same building. We had an ice cream cone, Betsy wrote post cards, Tipper presented himself to all the patrons in hopes of being petted, and I sat there and tried to remember the words to The Age of Aquarius. We also saw a great bumper sticker. A great afternoon in Pinos Altos.

June 24, 2010 Green Valley to Silver City, NM

Well gang, as promised we are back on the road. Get the women and children out of the streets!! It's been almost seven months since we've had any long term trailer livin'. We arrived in Silver City, NM at about noon, found ye old trailer park, unhooked, set up, ate lunch, and immediately got back into the SUV and headed for downtown. Silver City is an old mining town at 5900 feet above sea level, home to Billy The Kid, and Billy Casper who was a professional golfer years ago. We wanted to visit because it's known as an artist community with a couple of good antique stores. Another draw was the downtown architecture. Shortly after Silver City was founded the city fathers had the good sense to enact a building code that said all commercial buildings had to be build from adobe or brick. They avoided the catastrophic fires that plagued many other western towns. Consequently the downtown section is perfectly preserved. Many of the buildings are decorated in the art deco style, others are brightly colored. Our biggest treat of the day came from nature. On the drive over we commented several times on the beautiful cumulus clouds and that we could actually feel humidity. At dusk we were treated to a thunderstorm. We tried to remember the last time we had been rained upon and decided it was probably back in early April.

June 25,2010 After the rain last evening, we awoke to a perfectly clear blue sky and bright sunshine. Yes it supposed to be almost 90 degrees, but that beats the 109 that we left in Green Valley. In our travel brochures we found something that intrigues us. It's called City of Rocks and is located about 30 miles south of Silver City. It's not really a city with buildings but a grouping of huge boulders in an otherwise rock free landscape. The amazing thing is the theory on how the boulders got there. According to geologists a volcano erupted about 33 million years ago and threw these boulders to their present site. The volcano was located near the Albuquerque which is almost 200 miles away!!! The site is now a state park with a small campground for trailers, but there are also several tent camping sites located right next to the rocks. Some of them are very cool. This would be a good place to bring the whole family and camp for a few days.