excuse me, but what are those and where did they come from?

Our next stop after Guadalupe Mountains NP was City of Rocks State Park, NM. So, here we were, back out of the mountains and into the Chihuahuan Desert. Mostly brown and mostly flat-ish with distant mountains. Lots of cacti and creosote bushes. I knew we were going to City of Rocks so I assumed we were going to head back towards the mountains. I mean, we have to find the rocks to be in a city of them. There are hardly any trees so you can see for miles. We turn off the main road and go over this imperceptible rise, turn off that road to go to the state park when, in middle of this seemingly flat landscape where one can see for miles, there is a collection of gigantic boulders. Some are more than a hundred feet tall. In the middle of nowhere. 🤔

It seemed very incongruous. What were they? What are they doing there? How did they get there? Where did they come from? I mean, sure, my artistic sense said they were beautiful, awe inspiring, stunning. My adventurous side said, oh wow, how cool, I can't wait until we can scramble around on and in those. But my scientific side, my inquisitive side, wanted to know more. You "lucky" folks traveling along with us get to do all of those things!

Science first. Way, way, way back (35 million years ago) … there was a GIANT volcano that erupted. (It likely erupted for several years and was over 1000 times greater than the Mt St Helens eruption of 1980.) When it stopped, it had blanketed much of the landscape with hot ash. As the hot ash cooled, it shrank a bit, making slight cracks. Over the years the rock weathered along these cracks going from a solid mass to breaking apart into pillars and bolder shapes (present day). Eventually, in many more "ages", these volcanic pillars and boulders will likely be ground down and become just a part of the Chihuahuan Desert plain. The geology in the southwest is so present. It isn't hidden like so much of ours is in Vermont and New England, covered up with trees and soil and flora. It is exposed for all to see and learn from. All you have to do is ask why.

We took the opportunity, while we were "sort of" close, to head into those distant mountains to the Gila Cliff Dwellings SP. I, of course, turned a sickly shade of green as soon as we started to ascend the mountains. I took some Dramamine, conked out and two hours later, there we were. It was a miracle. 🙄

These were the first cliff dwellings we had seen and we were fascinated. The skill and craftsmanship to build these homes into the sides of cliffs using the rock as part of the structure was amazing. I was impressed and I think Martin, the engineer, was too.

On to pics.

To get to City of Rocks in NM from the Guadalupe Mountains, we passed through El Paso one more time. I had noticed these colorful neighborhoods in the Mexican side of the border when we had traveled through before and was never prepared to take a pic. So this time, across the car, across our side of traffic (we were in the very right lane of course, since we were pulling the trailer), across the median and across the opposite lanes of traffic I tried to take these pics. 😂 The neighborhoods were larger and went all the way down to the river, but I was "a bit limited" in what I could capture.

This is the Rio Grande. Looks a little on the dry side … this is an area where the US border is south of the river.

We stopped in Mesilla,NM to look about. It is a very old town settled by Spanish.

I learned over a fence to take this pic of someone's backyard ( I didn't realize it wasn't a public space until after if taken the pic) 🤭

A section of the original Spanish frieze

Oh look! I saw a roadrunner! Ok, so he's 20' tall and made of metal. I'm still searching for a living one …

City of Rocks State Park

Another "collection" of rocks a couple of miles from the campground.

Our campsite.

The campground had an astrological theme. All the campsites were named for astrological bodies and the park has a "nature" trail with signs displaying pertinent facts about our solar system and beyond. The signs are placed on a scale so you can actually see and walk the distances between the planets, moons, stars, etc. Our campsite was Phoenix.

Our picnic table and fire pit

A windmill in the park.

Views of the surrounding landscape

really not much there … except mountains in the far distance.

Except … wait, what is this cluster of red rocks in the back of mid area???

Hang on, this looks like a big cluster of big rocks. Note the tiny visitors center in front.

Clambering around up, on and about the rocks

Beautiful skies toward the end of day

and it's sunset

Birds - living ones 🤭

Vesper swallow (I think)

Thrasher

Woolly locoweed

Gila Cliff Dwellings

They are made in the tuff layer, the ash layer, from that gigantic volcanic eruption.

From the outside looking in

From the inside looking out. Not a bad view.

They are built right into and around the rock face. So fascinating.

A very elaborate multi-room, multi-family abode.

With ladders to get between levels

Here's Martin coming down. Now I'm just sayin', no more complaining about the steepness of our "stairs" these are definitively steeper than ours, just not by much … 😏

And ok, here is what I am the most amazed by, maze! Or meze. This extreme, arid climate allows for the preservation of items, even food. The ranger from the ranger lead talk let us look at it, examine it and even hold it as they passed some around. Then we just tossed it back into the storage area. It was small. The ears were about 4" long and maybe 1 - 1 1/2" in diameter. So mind-blowing to think you're holding food that's over 1000 years old!

A turkey vulture soaring on the canyon updrafts.

These cliff dwellings had likely been occupied by more than one type of Indian peoples throughout the years. Likely originally by mogollon (1000s), then ancestors of puebloan cultures (1200s) and finally from the pictographs and other evidence, Apache. Interestingly, the Apache tribe came from the north, way north. Their language is similar to languages of indigenous tribes in Alaska and northern Canada. Geronimo, and his Chiricahuas tribe occupied this land and hid from governments, Mexican and then American, until the late 1800s. He fought anyone who attempted to remove his people from their tribal lands.