We are all settled in, enjoying the heck out of this new home. It is huge and very comfortable and now it is time to get back to the adventure. We took delivery in Gallup and made it to Grants, NM for a couple of nights just to regroup and then it was to Alburquerque for a couple of nights for Paul to visit some dealers. And now we are heading south to warmer weather!
We are spending the weekend near Truth or Consequence New Mexico at a very nice state park, Caballo State Park is where home is for a couple of days and then it will be south to Las Cruces and then Texas.
There was a slight storm coming but that didn’t stop us from taking a drive into the Gila National Forest. We hit snow at the 8,000 foot summit but not enough to stop us. The landscape changed a lot from dusty desert to lots of beautiful pine trees. We passed through Hillsboro, which had one historical marker and not much else – we saw maybe 2 people!
???
We saw a few homesteads but not much else between Hillsboro and Kingston but we did see this sign for a ranch! I guess it is not failing? Kingston was not much more than Hillsboro but it did have a resort that obviously this is not peak season because we saw even less people in this village!
The Spit and Whittle Club! Paul wants to join
The Resort! very pretty but deserted
An Adobe wall and home
You could actually see the straw in the wall. Once we passed the peak we came upon the Santa Rita Open Pit Copper Mine. Paul was so excited.
Santa Rita Copper Mine
The mine is a mile wide and 1600 feet deep.
One of the tractor tires
Sometimes I can get Paul to pose! The mine was huge and the tractors were so tiny. It seemed the tailings went on forever. This is the oldest continually operated copper mine in the US, and one of the largest pit operations. Moving onward….
Next stop Hatch, NM the Chile capitol of the World. No Chile’s growing now but we did get to have the Famous Green chile and an even more famous little dive! Sparky’s BBQ. It gets great reviews on Yelp and Google and we have to try the Green Chile Cheeseburger while in New Mexico so lets give it a shot.
We arrive and the place is just to much fun, signs everywhere and memorabilia of all types.
Red or Green, what’s your desire?
Bob’s Big Boy
where is Duke? He is suppose to do the stupid pictures!
A water feature?
Ronald McDonald
My favorite, brings back the good ole days!
And the green chile cheeseburger was awesome as was the green chili sweet cream corn. We even bought 5 lbs of green chile so we can make our own burgers!