8: Unexpected Ending

8/5/17

IMG_2064Up and off leaving Tombstone behind and heading North East and into New Mexico! Before getting to New Mexico we actually had to head South East to the town of Douglas on the Mexican border. We passed through the very picturesque town of Bisbee, a silver and copper mining town perched in a steep canyon before hitting the Arizona plains and on our way to the Mexican border.

I wasn’t too surprised to see the border fairly heavily guarded and the now infamous fence in place. (BTW there are fences in most of the border towns.. “the fence” will cover the miles and miles of open pastureland that divide the two countries… Tricked you!)

Anyway, from Douglas we started our trek north towards the New Mexican border and the town of Silver City. Not the idyllic town I was expecting to see (I had in my minds eye another alpine region that had a cutesy 1880s town perched on the edge.. Bisbee like).. Instead we arrived into a large town on the edge of another open cut! Oh well!

DSC_7817Lunch today was a very tasty bbqd steak and salad that we cooked in the Silver City park on the edge of a drain! Actually better than I’ve just made it sound. We had squirrels for company! From Silver City we then headed eastwards over the Mimbres Mountains towards Truth and Consequences. The drive through the mountains was another beautiful vista, quite similar to the vista two days ago down towards Morenci.. more tall mountains, rimmed with scrubby bushland.

Late in the afternoon (with a storm chasing us across the mountains) we finally hit the plains and down to Truth and Consequences.. We went for one reason, I wanted a photo of the sign! (I mean, how many towns have a name like this one!) The town itself is perched on the edge of the Rio Grande and is so named because the town decided they wanted to rename themselves after a popular game show in the 70s!!! Nuts huh? Anyway, like I said we went to get a photo…. Once we got there though we discovered something quite different… Truth and Consequences is just past the continental divide (we crossed it not long after lunch) and is on a river… Those two combined equal.. Hot Springs!!

IMG_2066And we fluked it.. After I got my photo I googled to find this other road that I was going to take us down (we couldn’t easily see it by driving around) to get to Las Cruces (south).. Anyway, whilst googling I saw a marker on the map for River Bed Springs.. So I directed us to the marker and low and behold a public swimming area right on the Rio Grande pumped full of hot water! Of course we detoured and spent a relaxing half hour or so immersed in the hot water of River Bed Springs. The swimming area even had an opening into the Rio Grande so D+I went for a “dip” in the river itself… Dip is the operative word because holy dooley.. FREEZING! Even with the hot water flowing onto our backs our little bums + feeties were chilled! The river was also flowing very rapidly so no swimming for us (even if the temp wouldn’t have deterred me)- in fact, we were quite careful to hold on the whole time because of the flow.

So another day ended with a flukey find and a relax!

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