3/6 Rockhound State Park, Deming, NM

I have been here before, but it has been several years.  Why do I go back to a lot of the same places?  Mostly, I go back to places I have enjoyed in the past but did not stay long enough the first time.  If I do not go back to a campground, it probably means I did not enjoy it in the past.

Anyway, New Mexico has some very nice state parks.  Although it is not the Sonoran Desert, southern New Mexico's Chihuahuan desert has its own beauty.  It is higher and drier, in general, than Arizona's Sonoran desert, and it does not have any Saguaro Cactus.  It does, however, have most of the other cacti found in other states.  

Rockhound State Park is much smaller than most state parks in New Mexico, and it does not have a lake or river running through it.  The result is that it is VERY quiet. And, as the name indicates, it really has a lot of rocks, and as is NOT true is almost every other state park in the country, you are actually encouraged to collect them and take them home with you!

I only had three days to spend here, but here are some of the photos I took. 

This part of southwestern New Mexico has had enough rain this year that the desert has a lot of vegetation in it, turning it green.  This is the campground on the edge of the slope up the mountains in the background.  It is a few hundred feet higher than the town of Deming and the valley in the distance, so at night you can see a lot of lights sparkling in the distance.

My campsite was large and very long, with a covered picnic table for hot summer days.  Except it was pretty chilly when i was here!  Nights even dropped below 32 degrees!

This cement strip is actually a shallow ditch so that rainwater would not erode the gravel.

 

 

 

Next to my campsite was this small botanical garden.  It was surrounded by barbed wire, by the way, so that the neighboring cattle did not get in to eat the plants.  

This is a weird-looking barrel cactus.  Not sure what caused it to grow with this deformity, but it was interesting. 

 

It is a bit early for wildflowers, but there were a few.  Nearly all desert wildflowers are small and often hidden under other plants, so you have to look carefully for them.  These little yellow flowers, I think, are Gordon's Bladderpod.

There are a lot of types of prickly pear, and the sign clearly identifies this as Cow's Tongue prickly pear.

These are Mexican Gold Poppies.

And these, as the sign says, are Brown-spined Prickly Pear.

And some Purple Prickly Pear.

???????????????

Desert Chicory

?????????????

Mohave or Hall's Suncup??

Desert Globemallow

Visitor center.  Next stop will be Oliver Lee State Park, near Alamogordo, NM.