Our first visit here was back in February of 2023 when we spent a full week on Campsite #16 in the back loop of the campground. This time around we also have a full week, but now we are on the main loop in Campsite #14. The nice thing about this site is we have no neighbors. The closest site to us is over 400' back up the road and behind their own wall of massive rocks.
In February of 2023 the daytime high temperatures were between 45°F and 59°F with the overnight lows between 20°F and 33°F. This time around we have more favorable weather conditions, with highs between the upper-60°Fs and mid-70°S and the lows well above freezing between the upper-30°Fs and upper-40°Fs.
If we visit here again it won't be in February!
and still gain some afternoon solar once the sun gets more directly overhead.
You can see THE POD's shadow is directly behind it at just before noon.
We have quite a few projects planned to accomplish during our week here, but that all begins tomorrow.
Some of them are simple projects like scraping the expired 2023 New Mexico State Park Pass off the front window of THE POD. Other projects are more time consuming like reorganizing the contents of ROVER's back seat and pickup bed, to purge any items that we no longer use or need.
All of the projects are things we've been putting off until our sightseeing activites from this summer and fall have concluded. Well that's now, so no more excuses.
After Tricia scraped the expired camping pass off the front window she went ahead and cleaned all the other windows she could reach from the ground. While she was doing that I got out my electric drill and removed the broken straps on our outdoor chairs. I have plans to replace the straps by cutting up an old unused leather belt of mine. I'll share photos when it's complete.
One of the items that arrived in our Amazon package was a special roll of twine. Tricia is going to try and replace the twine in one of our window blinds before it snaps. It's literally been hanging on by a single thread for the last few weeks. We'll see how that goes! It's not an easy task!
While Tricia began working on the blind I received a text message informing me that our mail was ready to be picked up at the Faywood, NM Post Office that's just 9-miles up the road.
In the seven and a half years we've been forwarding our mail to ourselves it's only been lost once. That was when way back in August of 2019 in Springfield, OH. Springfield had a population of nearly 60,000 people then, so there's a lot of mail going through that post office. Since then I've only sent our mail to small town post offices like Faywood (pop. 33) and it's never been lost. It does take an extra day to arrive, but it's well worth the wait.
The photos are slightly out of order to make the captioning flow better, but they were all taken between 6:30AM and 7:30AM this morning.
SUNRISE AT CITY OF ROCKS
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The City of Rocks has a nearly 2-mile long entrance road.This is a new park sign, it's different than the one we saw here 2-years ago.
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This photo was taken just 15-minutes earlier than the previous photo.Notice how the Visitor Center and the City of Rocks are all still in shadow.
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The sites in the front of the park are cramped together, but have water and electric hookups.
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This Visitor Center was designed to "blend in" with the City of Rocks.
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It's not just the City of Rocks that comes alive at sunrise.
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The surrounding area also becomes very photogenic.
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It's hard to see, but there's a gravel road leading up into those mountains.We just might have to take ROVER out exploring before we leave here.
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This is the rear of the park where we are camped. Can you pick out THE POD?
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It looks like the flowers around the Visitor Center could use a little watering...
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...while this agave specimen seems to be growing just fine.
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Also outside the Visitor Center is this old windmill.
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Looks like it's going to be another warm sunny day here in New Mexico.
That's probably due to the fact there are no large bodies of water nearby like ponds or lakes.
What we do have here are beautiful western sunsets and eastern sunrises.
During our move from Faywood Hot Springs over to City of Rocks State Park we towed THE POD a total of just 4-miles. That's not a new record low for us, because while we were in Alaska we towed THE POD just 3-miles from our campsite inside a state park to a rest area on the highway just outside the front gate to spend the night.
The other piece of information I'm going to share with you is the fact when we leave City of Rocks we will have spent 105 nights in New Mexico, which places it in 5th place on our Most Visited State list, just 2-nights behind Alaska. Our next stop is also in New Mexico for 4-nights, so by the end of the weekend, New Mexico will have taken over the 4th postion on the list.
We should have just as nice sunrises and sunsets at our next stop as it's only 44-miles due south of here.
A NEW MEXICO SUNRISE
FROM CITY OF ROCKS STATE PARK
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At 5:50AM it looked like it was going to be just another typical sunrise.
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Just 30-minutes later it was starting to show signs of being anything but typical.
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The jet contrails from nearby Las Cruces airport only added to the scenery.
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Just 4-minutes later most of the reds are gone, being replaced by the yellows.
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Zooming in on the reds, it almost looks like the brushstrokes of a painting.
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Zooming out just a little and it begins to resemble a fire in the sky.
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This is just 7-minutes later focusing westward away from the sunrise.
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THE POD is just around the corner. Time to start packing up to move on down the road.
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