The Plans, They are a Changin’

We left Arizona and headed into New Mexico. I must say that the drive from Bisbee to Rockhound State Park near Deming New Mexico was very desolate. The area is mostly arid desert peppered with small cattle ranches. We stopped just twice on the 200 mile drive.  The first stop was a historical marker for the surrender of Geronimo.

 
The second stop was at a museum/gift shop standing by itself just north of Rodeo NM (population 101).  The museum had a wonderful native garden filled with cacti and other native plants.  There was also a large tortoise area which put our backyard tortoise preserve to shame. I am sorry that we did not get any pictures but we were just excited to stretch our legs.

We reached Rockhound State Park in the Little Florida Mountains about 4pm and quickly found our site and settled in.  Rockhound is a favorite spot for rockhounds due to the abundance of agate and quartz crystals found in the park.  Rockhound is one of the very few parks in the country which will let you collect and keep rocks (up to 15 pounds).

 
We hiked the prime rock area in the morning but did not find any precious stones or rocks.  Marley did pick up a cactus spine in the middle of his back as his souvenir.

The hike did provide lots of wildflowers along the trail.

There was also some wildlife.

 
After our hike we offloaded the motorcycle and headed to nearby Spring Canyon State Park in search of the Persian Ibex goats. In the 1970s the Iranian government gifted the United States with 27 Ibex goats. They were released in this area because of the geographic similarity to Iran. The goats now number between 300 and 500.

Picture taken from internet,  "Bezoarziege" by F. Spangenberg (Der Irbis, own photo) -

We hiked the Lover’s Leap trail for about 1 1/2 miles looking for the illusive goats.

We never did see any goats or find the lover's leap but it was a lovely hike anyway.

This caterpillar was as close as we got to a goat.

Getting ready to leap but I think I could survive this.

While at the park we Bill reevaluated our my travel itinerary. He decided that Big Bend National Park in Texas was thousands of miles out of the way (really it is only 236 miles from Guadalupe Mountains National Park, our next stop). I guess I will have to get my passport stamp some other time.

All in all it was a lovely stay at Rockhound and I will leave you with the spectacular sunset from our site.

Today's 3 Fun Facts:

1.  The Little Florida Mountains contains semi-precious gem stones including opals, jasper, geodes and black gemstone.
2. During the Christmas season the park is lit with over 1,000 paper bag luminaries.
3. Bill's limit traveling in the rv is about 2 weeks, we haven't found my limit yet.