3/6 City of Rocks, Deming, NM

This state park is kind of a strange place.  Visualize a volcano 30 million years ago, with "bubbles" of molten lava pushing their way up through the erupting mass, but not quite making it to the top.  As the volcano cooled, they solidified and over the eons, the covering rocks wore away, leaving these rounded rocks as the only indication of the ancient eruption. 

I had planned to spend more time here in New Mexico in 2018, but ended up having to cancel my winter plans that year.  This year, I had made plans to stay at various state and federal campgrounds for the months of February, March, and April, except because of COVID-19, my February reservations were cancelled.  Finally, they have opened the state parks for March and April, so I am here at last.  I'll be moving roughly once a week to a new campground.

 Mostly, the land around here is very flat, with mountains far in the distance.  There are a few of these rock formations in the area of the state park, but they are not common in the rest of the area or the rest of the country, for that matter.   The cluster of cars on the right, by the way, are camp hosts checking in the few campers that have been allowed.  I made my reservations several months ago, so I am one of the lucky ones, but they are still limiting numbers because of the virus.   

There are only a few electric sites, and they are all clustered in this area to the right.  The non-electric sites are tucked into the rocks so they have lots of privacy.  On the other hand, I much prefer electricity and water hookups over privacy!! 

My rather large campsite.  My only complaint about this place is that the roads are gravel, which means when a vehicle goes past, there are huge clouds of dust.  Luckily, the wind is blowing away from my freshly washed motorhome, but it has somehow managed to get covered with dust and sand anyway.  (I stopped at a Blue Beacon Truck Wash on the way here, which I would not have done had I known about the gravel roads.)  When no one was looking, i did cheat a bit and sprayed some water on it and got most of it off. 

This is the view across from my campsite.

Yucca plants and Joshua trees look very similar, but the flower spikes are very different.  I found these two types, but need to look them up to get more info on which is which.

Here is a campsite across from me.  No power or water, but very private.

Today, March 6th, I went for a long walk on a marked trail through the rocks.  It turned out to be longer than i had planned on, and it was sometimes tricky walking on the rocks, but at least there were some other people out walking if I had fallen. 

A view of my motorhome and a mountain in the distance.  I used my telephoto lens, so this was farther away than it looks.

I was waiting for an earthquake or some boy scout leaders to knock this over.

You can see how the path was marked here.  I could not take a shortcut and get off of it because the path was about 50 feet above the campsites and over very rocky terrain so I had to keep going to the end. 

Whew!  I walked for a full hour and finally made it back to my campsite!