NM in one picture - barren, prickly and colorful at dusk

We stayed a week in this location - much longer than most places we’ve been.  But, today it was time to wrap up our stay and head out of the Rockhound State Park.  We know we’re going to have this combination of scenery & costs again, but when it’s time to go, it’s time to go.

Just outside of the state park is a dilapidated low-hanging building with a number of solar panels around it with piles of rocks everywhere.  The weathered sign out front reads Basin Range Volcanics Geolapidary Museum.  It looked like it might be just the kind of unique local attraction to check out, so we stopped by.  After knocking on the door and hearing “come in” we entered, and the proprietor - Paul “the geode kid” Colburn quickly switched on the overhead lights.  He led us on a brief tour of the cluttered interior (which I’m sure is in perfect order as he looks at it).  The conversation went all over the map from growing up, to college, to rock collecting, to politics and history.  Storybird fell in love with a golf-ball sized geode and used her allowance money to purchase it.

From there we drove up to the Spring Canyon portion of the park next door - including the 17% grade road to get there - for a quick look around and short hike up the “Lovers Leap” trail. We weren’t able to make it to the actual Leap because the park gates close at 4:00 - we passed the Ranger truck (and some open-range cattle) on our way out.

Saturday night the park visitor center was having a “Star Party” - so we bundled up and headed down right after sunset.  Cookies and water were provided while we heard a telling of the Navajo Indians “sky lore” (but the volunteer did slip in Psalms 19:1 before doing so).  After the Indian legends were discussed the park volunteer had a powerful laser that she could use to point out the different constellations.  We also spotted two satellites (one of which might have been the space shuttle), and others in the group saw a shooting star as well.  One of the other star party members was using an iPhone app that would overlay information about the constellations when you point the camera towards the sky.  I found a similar app back at the campsite - SkyView which really helps identify the stars you are looking at.

This morning we packed up and got ourselves on the road in time to make it into Deming for church.  We chose to be Baptist again and attended the First Baptist Church where I was greeted with “I know you!”.  Turns out our LP salesman - Angel -  from earlier in the week is a deacon.

After church we drove down the road another 30 miles…but details on that location will be in the next post.  All in all we had a great week in Deming - definitely much more to this town than being a small gas stop off I-10.