Not School of Rock.  City of Rocks, in Faywood, NM.  What?  You don’t know where Faywood is?  Neither did we.  But, located in Faywood is City of Rocks State Park, and this you don’t want to miss.  I don’t know if this post will resonate with anyone else, but this campground was right in our wheelhouse.

Before you pack up your bags to move to Faywood, know that you need to bring everything you need.  While Faywood is about a 45-minute drive out of Deming, there is nothing in Faywood.  As in – nothing.  No center of town, no general grocery, no fuel stop, no justice of the peace, nada.  Just rocks.  Big rocks.

City of Rocks State Park is a “pack it in, pack it out” park.  There are campsites, but no services other than a water spigot in a few spots.  No electricity, no water, no dumping.  But pretty freaking beautiful.  Actually, there are a few full hookup sites, but those are mostly for campground hosts and are not nearly as nice as the other no-service sites.  And I will readily admit that not every site is suitable to a rig our size, so if making reservations note the site details.  But our site (#28) was superb.

Having never been to Africa, we have had the feeling of “Out of Africa” in previous trips, but this place really made us feel like we were out on the Serengeti – minus the lions and tigers and dancing bears.  Just Bror and karen Blixen on a road trip.

City of Rocks looks, from a short distance away, to be very uninspiring.  Distance and views here are highly disorienting.  What looks from a (1/2 mile) distance to be a collection of small rocks is a collection of enormous boulders that were spit out from a volcano about 35 million years ago.  According to geologists, that volcano was 1,000 times the violence of Mt. St. Helens back in 1980.  Yikes.  If you were alive in 1980 you will remember the sheer size of the St. Helens eruption and the fact that volcanic dust spewed into the air and covered the entire width of the US for weeks, impacting our health, agricultural activity, airline flight paths, and a myriad of different things.  Now think 1,000 of these erupting at one time!  After 35 million years, all we show for this are these rocks – everything else has been ground down by oceans, rain, weather, and sand.  Another reminder of how insignificant we are in our own little self-absorbed view of ourselves on this planet.

Within the state park are several beautiful hiking paths, and clearly the best time of day to hike would be early morning or close to dusk, not because of weather (although in a hot month this would be a factor), but more because of the lighting.

A short distance from Silver City (just north of City of Rocks by about 20-30 miles) is a turnoff to go up to the Gila National Forest and the Gila Cave Dwellings.  From Silver City (which has a very cute downtown area), it is a seemingly short 45-mile drive, but in fact is a good two-hour drive (one way), because of its twists and turns.  A stunning drive but plan accordingly timewise.

The Gila National Forest is over 3 million acres, and according to the US Forest Service best known for its wilderness areas – the first wilderness areas in the United States.

Within the national forest are the Gila cliff dwellings, which, unfortunately for us (due to New Year’s Day) was closed.  So, no photos except a stock photo courtesy Wikipedia, but it seems like an interesting place to visit, and we would love to return to spend more time here in the forest.

Departing the Gila cave area, we headed back out on the only road there is – only to find, and I cannot begin to describe this experience, other than to say that it was New Year’s Day, a group of revelers out in the middle of the road with some form of gypsy wagon in front of the entrance to the Heart Bar Animal Management Area – dressed for and dancing to a ‘70’s Soul Train vibe.  Did I mention this was out in the middle of nowhere?  It was game on for these revelers.  Now we may have seen a total of 6 other cars the whole day, and it was a 2-hour drive one-way to the cliff dwellings.  And it is highly likely that no one other than us would have seen these folks because there was no one at the Cave Dwellings and only a couple of campers in the area.  I cannot esplain it, Lucy.  But it sure was fun!  Tune in for a little Freakshow on the Dance Floor by The Bar-Kays (according to my trusty musical historian Kyle).

 

This was just so cool and SO unexpected – it was like it came out of some psychedelic dream from years past.  Once we got past this group, I asked Karen to drive.  I felt anxious.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have adjusted my meds…. Do the hustle, baby.  When we get home, I am going to renew my subscription to the the Bar-Kays and KC and the Sunshine Band newsletters.  Been a while.

You know, I always struggle on how to end a post – to bring some thought structure together such that I think I have delivered a cogent message.  Nah.  Let’s watch Soul Train one more time.  Party on, Garth.