Silver City, New Mexico

We needed a Walgreens, groceries, hardware store, WiFi, Post Office, laundry, and most important Shiny’s holding tanks were chock full. We decided to live in luxury for a few days at Rose Valley RV Ranch in Silver City. Everything we needed was within walking distance of the camp ground, and we discovered later Don Juan’s drive through burritos where for $3.50 you can buy a burrito that is good for two meals!

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Pedro sits in the Rose Valley RV Ranch office and has been making his way around the city for many years.

Michael and Denise had adventures of there own awaiting them so with promises of meeting up again back in New England they went on their way after two days at Rose Valley. We had a fun time with them over the last 4 weeks. We will miss them.

Silver City was founded in 1870 after prospectors swarmed to the area to take advantage of abundant silver deposits discovered in the area. Here are some of the highlights of our stay.

Memory Lane Cemetery

An old graveyard still in use today. We found some interesting head stones here.

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The Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

In the late 1200’s the Mogollon (mug-e-own) people decided to build rooms into these cliff caves. It’s about a one mile hike to get up there but worth every step. No one knows why but these dwellings were only lived in for about 20 years. This is one of the few, maybe the only, ancient cliff dwellings that you can actually walk into. It was jaw dropping standing inside these dwellings.

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Western New Mexico University Museum

Home to a large collection of Mimbres Indian artifacts. 

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Fort Bayard

Established as an Army post in 1866 to protect miners and settlers along the Apache Trail. It was mainly garrisoned by Buffalo Soldiers. (African American soldiers from the 9th and 10th cavalry and some other units.)

In later years it was turned into a tuberculous hospital, then a prisoner of war camp during WWII. We read that the old structures that remain house a museum, but the complex looked abandoned to us. The day we were there the local fire department was doing maneuvers in the streets. There is now a modern medical center, long term nursing care facility and a chemical dependency treatment center nearby on the property.

Fort Bayard National Cemetery

Buffalo Soldiers were buried here up until the 1930’s. There is a statue to honor Corporal Clinton Greaves who was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor in 1879.

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And the Medal of Honor recipient Corporal Greaves.

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The Big Tree and Wagon Wheel Ruts Hiking Trails

Part of the Fort Bayard & Dragonfly trail network. The Big Tree is the 2nd oldest juniper tree in the country.

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And the Wagon Wheel Trail. These ruts were worn into the rock by wagons supplying Fort Bayard in the late 1800’s. This was fascinating to me.

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Dragonfly Petroglyth Trail

Petroglyths on this trail, Need I say more. 🙂 Except we had to make a second trip to actually find the Dragonfly.

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Little Walnut Recreation Area

We hiked up to Gomez Peak just outside of Silver City from here. We, or more accurately I, got lost and luckily a feller named Pete found us and showed us the way.

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We could see ourselves living in this area. Not too populated and oh so much to do.