My next stop was a place I have been to before--Rockhound State Park in southern New Mexico. I had hoped to see some flowers and cacti in bloom, but it was a lot colder this year than the last few years, and there has been almost no rainfall in the past year, so everything was dry and not yet leafed out or in bloom.
BUT, it is still one of my favorite places in New Mexico because it is so quiet and beautiful in this small state park where you can actually pick up and take home any gemstones you find!
I enjoy this state park because it is on the slope of a mountain with nice views of the mountains and valley in the distance. In addition, it is also a small state park, and sites are large and well-spread out. The result is a very quiet and scenic place to spend a few days. This time, I spent 10 days. Unfortunately, it was chilly, and we had some major problems with wind and nasty dust storms, so I did not spend much time outdoors or do much walking.
When I arrived on Sunday, the campground looked like this, with nice, blue skies.
The sunset made everything look red tonight.
A few of the other campsites. Notice how far apart they are. This is a full campground, by the way.
Looking towards Deming and across the valley. The far mountains are about 20 miles away.
The Dust Storm!
When I checked in, the camp host warned me of strong winds and a dust storm the next day, so I made sure to fill my fresh water tank with at least three days of water.
The next morning, Monday, it started to get dusty about 10 am. This first photos looks at the trailer across the roadway. The closest hill here is only about 500' away.
This is looking east, towards the big mountain next to the campground. It also has almost disappeared. At this point, I was REALLY happy I did not have a dog who needed to be walked! Until the storm abated about 6 pm, I saw almost no one outside of their RVs.
However, the weekend was very pleasant as was Monday and Tuesday of that week. I headed north on Wednesday. It was windy, but not as bad as the four days of the previous week. The biggest problem was that it was a sideways wind to my vehicle which meant I had to keep a tight grip on the steering wheel so I could quickly react to stronger gusts. Driving a tall motorhome like mine is a lot like driving a billboard in the wind.
These are last year's fruits on a barrel cactus. I had not realized that these were edible, but I looked them up and found this interesting article. Its hard to find a place where you can pick them, and I am not sure I want to go through the preparation process, but the recipes look interesting. https://foragerchef.com/barrel-cactus-fruit/ The good news about these fruits is that they have no little spines that require burning or scraping as do many other cactus fruits!
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