Silver City, NM

Monday, March 7^th, we left Tucson for Silver City, NM to meet up with Bob and Chris Risberg, friends of ours from Plano who are also fulltimers.

We met up at Rose Valley RV Park and got settled in.

Very nice CG with great sites to park in.  Even got the DISH setup and working in a relatively short time!
While in Mesa, Judy finished our plaque for the trailer.

On Tuesday we drove up to the Gila (pronounced ‘HEE – la”) to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.  They are about 45 miles away but it takes two hours to get there because it is a mountainous route.  Speeds rarely got about 40 miles per hour.  Beautiful scenery, though.

The Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of the people of the Mogollon culture who lived there from the 1280's through the early 1300's.  The cliff dwellings were built in the 1280's.  These Pueblo people built their homes in natural caves and in the open.  There are examples of both types of settlements in the monument area.  Probably not more than 8 or 10 families lived in the cliff dwellings at any one time.  The rooms were probably not used more than one generation.

The women averaged 5'1" and the men about 5'5" in height.  They were slight of build, yet muscular, with dark hair and eyes and brown skin.  The sounds of their voices and laughter echoed in the canyon.  And then there were only the sounds of the streams and birds.

The cliff dwellers had abandoned their homes and fields by 1300.  Why they left and where they went are not known.  Perhaps they joined other Pueblo Indians to the north or south.

This is a very remote place.  It is about a mile walk from beginning to end (mostly climbing steps, etc.) but very beautiful as you can see.

Up there is where we are headed.

View of the caves from below.

Informative sign along the way!

Getting closer.

Proof that we made it up there!

View from the caves looking back down into the canyon where we followed the trail to get here.

See the ladder - it's either down that or back down the trail.

Chris went first.

Then Judy.

I followed (no picture because I had my phone and Judy's camera batteries had died) and made it down.
Bob made it seem easy!!

 As we made our way down, we could see one of the bridges that we crossed on the way up.

 We made our way down the trail and back to the parking lot.

One final view as we made our way down.

We spent about 3 hours up there and then made our way back to Silver City.  Along the way we found a copper mine that is still in operation today.

When we got back to Silver City, we found the Toad Creek Brewery.

Had some snacks and beer.  Then back to the CG for cards.

The next morning, Wednesday, Bob and Chris headed for Phoenix and we headed for home.