Greetings from Socorro

I know I've been negiligent here, but we've been bushed. It is a good tired though.

Yesterday, as my pictures above will attest, was a great day. The Gila National Forest is incredibly beautiful. The Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument was a very special place. The walk up and back was about one mile. While we were up there, we were fortunate enough to catch a tour with a volunteer for the park service who really knew her stuff. Thank you, Gene!

We tried going back into Pinos Altos to take some pictures of the historical buildings before heading up to the forest, but THREE pitbulls were loose on the main street. Yikes! I couldn't get back in the car fast enough. Alpha Dog chased the car a good 1/4 mile, biting at the tires the whole time.

I also took some video which I will try to upload here at some point in time. The visitor's center has quite a hummingbired population, and they are unafraid of humans. I could have spent a lifetime watching those little beauties.

The bulk of our tourist bucks were spent on books. They had a great selection, and we kept our purchase to a conservative $60. I'm kind of sorry I didn't push for one more book, though. It was a collection of essays on Native American spiritual thought on a variety of subjects.

We left Silver City this morning and drove to Truth or Consequences, which was a neat little town. I liked it very much.

From there we drove to the Camino Real cultural center, which was a very interesting hour learning about the history of the road. The architecture of the place was very interesting as well.

Tonight we are in Socorro, which is another nice little town. We just had dinner at the Socorro Springs Brewing Company. We both had local brews and sandwiches, and everything was great.

Tomorrow we head to Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. It will be another full day.

Someone is getting annoyed with me spending so much time here. I've still got stuff to do to prepare for the morning.