Chihuly in the Desert

The Desert Botanical Garden was just ok, having spent days hiking in the REAL desert near Phoenix.  But they had an exhibit of Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures, which were pretty cool.

Hiking the Sonoran Desert

Just past the suburbs of Phoenix, the Pass Mountains rise up 2,000 feet from the desert floor and Usery Mountain park abuts Tonto National Forest, so the hiking goes on forever.  We, however, don't go on forever but we did do a nice six-mile hike through a saguaro cactus forest to a great overlook.  Tucker got a sticker in his foot, but we got through that crisis (anything with Tucker's feet is a crisis to him).

Arizona!

After a six-hour drive, we've just arrived at our campsite in Mesa Arizona in time for the sunset. This is one of the most picturesque camping spots we have ever had.

City of Rocks

28 million years ago, a huge volcano about 15 miles east of Silver City erupted with the force of 1,000 Mount St. Helens.  The hot ash fell in a circle fifty miles across and some of it was so hot that it congealed into rock in tall clumps.  Those clumps were eroded by the wind and the result was a geologic formation so unusual there are only six like it in the world.  Now a state park, the "City of Rocks" is a beautiful and incredibly fun place to explore, which we did around sunset today.  We could have spent hours here wandering around the formations which stand alone in a vast desert plain.  The sunset light really brought out their beauty.

City of Rocks from a distance

 

Venus and the last of sunset at City of Rocks

THIS is what brought us to Silver City in the first place

 Silver City is one of the coolest places that nobody has ever heard of, but how did we find it?  It happens to be the closes place to stay (if you consider a two-hour drive close) to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, one of the most interesting places we've been on our whole trip west.  Back in 1280, give or take a few years, the Mimbres people used rock and clay to build over 40 rooms inside 5 caves high on a cliff overlooking the Gila river.  They lived there for only about 30 years before abandoning it and moving on.  While looted by pot hunters in the 1880s, it is still well-preserved and well-managed by the National Park Service.  Visitors can walk through the rooms and imagine what it was like to live here 700 years ago.  Here are lots  of pictures because they speak for themselves.

A HUGE milestone on our journey West

 

Just past the incredibly quaint town of Pinos Altos, which is north of Silver City, we crossed the continental divide.