Gila Hot Springs, New Mexico (driving to and driving from....)

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After a great stay at Elephant Butte and a beautiful side trip to White Sands National Monument we were off to visit some Hot Springs and soak...

Destination was Gila Hot Springs outside Silver City, New Mexico. Natural hot springs were in the region and we noted the Gila springs from the atlas, researched the location and campground with our spotty internet connections and headed out.

The first story here is the drive to the hot springs. To get there all we had to do was take route 152 to route 35, but little did we know what those roads entailed. They lead us UP -- THROUGH -- and DOWN a mountain range. A paved series of steep inclines, endless hair pin turns and outstanding views of the mountains and distant valleys below. Some hair pin turns and the signs warning of the upcoming turn were your standard 180 degree. Other signs actually had more of a curl to the arrow...and these were beyond the standard 180 degree....steering wheel was going all the way around and upside down....no guard rails, long drop offs, Shannon in the passenger seat had to focus to keep lunch where it belonged. Nonetheless, we got there.

Did we ever, it was nothing like the lovely web site pictures and romantic/relaxing/tranquil retreat we were anticipating. Poorly marked and somewhat shady we drove by and said....no...that cant be it.....we entered and drove through someone's dirty live stock ranch to the back of the property, and there they were, three holes in the ground with hippies and weirdo's scattering about. The campsites, if you could call them that, were close together and just sandy dirty patches with a number nailed to a tree. Bathrooms were another story and this is where we christened our 5-gallon bucket and matching toilet seat... Shannon said, we're staying one night and we're sleeping in the van....done.

The hot springs were ok, hot and stuff, but algae and hairs floated by making you say....eww. We soaked that night and in the morning then bounced out of that place.

Destination now...City of Rocks State Park, NM.....but shortly after we departed we got to a closed section of highway ... dust storm and low visibility .... we had to sit and wait at a designated rest stop along with about 80 other vehicles for about an hour and a half.

Eventually we got to City of Rocks and explored; our intention was to camp but we decided to move on due the ridiculous wind.

City of Rocks.....in a stretch of New Mexico where it was flat lands as far as you could see, we took a left, and there was a....city of rocks. The result of volcanic activity and erosion there was this one area of these huge rocks in odd formations....pretty neat.

The next 36 hours were extremely windy, constant wind 35-45 mph gusting to 65mph. We were on highway 10 headed west. At 65mph the van required 3,500 rpm (normally only 1,500) due to the heavy head wind. We tucked in behind some semi trucks but that was equally scary, as the wind shifted the trailers sideways and when driving i could see the entire side of the truck...we exited after about 45 minutes and hunkered down in the van for the night.

(this blog is about 3-4 days behind us, we'll catch up now with internet...)

JP

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Photos

Standard hairpin
One of countless....

One of them other hairpins
Hold on to your britches

City Rocks
Can you find my girls...

Comments

[Sonny]

Those pesky hippies! Don't leave any food out. They are ravenous when they get the munchies.