6/28/13 - City of Rocks State Park, NM

We left Las Cruces early this morning and drove to City of Rocks State Park north of Deming and about 25 minutes from Silver City, New Mexico. We dodged tumbleweeds on the way.  This park has a group of rock formations which were formed by erosion of tuff (volcanic ash) deposited by a huge volcanic eruption 35 million years ago.  We got a site with water and electricity for $14.00 per night.  There is no dump station here.  This is to make you conserve water because the area is so dry.  There are flush toilets and showers by the office and they are open from 7:30 am to 9 pm.  Pit toilets are also scattered throughout the campground.  There are ten electric and water sites and the rest are dry campsites.  We will try to come here again when it’s cooler and get one of those.  They are nestled amongst the rocks.

 

After lunch we walked to the visitor center and watched a short movie, then we took a walk through the large rock formations.  After returning to the Casita we sat outside for a while.  The sun came out and the wind began to blow hot air so we went back inside.  It was very nice most of the morning and early afternoon when it was cloudy.

We had a lot of visitors at camp today.  We saw a couple of Gambel’s Quails, a House Wren (they have a red breast), a Long Billed Thrasher, two large Chihuahuan Ravens, a Canyon Towhee and a Jackrabbit.  I sat two bowls of water out at camp and the birds really like it.

After dinner and when the sun started to set, we walked all around the campground.  We found two geocaches and saw bats at site 43.