11 - ROCKHOUND ST PK, DEMING, NM

Saturday, 5/19 we left Patagonia Lake State Park after 5 days.  Had a great time and would have stayed over the weekend, but they were having a big Mariachi Festival and the park was filled up – no room in the inn and we had to vacate.

We back-tracked to Benson where we hit I-10 east – then back through the Texas Canyon and all the rocks, crossed back into New Mexico, and had a good ride through the desert country.

It was a relatively short drive (247 miles) to our destination for the weekend – Rockhound State Park about 12 miles east of Deming, NM.  We have stayed at this park several times over the years we love the area & scenery.  The campground is at the base of the Florida Mountains and overlooks the flat desert area to the west toward Deming.

We got the birdfeeders up, spread out some scratch feed and sunflower seeds on the ground, and before long we had customers.  One of the birds we have been looking forward to seeing is the Scaled Quail – they are pretty comical the way they run around on the ground with their little topknots sticking up.  We had several pair that showed up and they hung around off & on the whole time we were here.  There were also a couple of other species that we enjoyed. 

Sunday, we went into Deming and attended worship services at the First Baptist Church. They had good worship music and the pastor delivered a very good message. We had been here before a couple of years ago and remembered that the pastor is originally from Birmingham, AL and went to college at the University of Alabama (I tried not to hold that against him). At least he got through the sermon without the dreaded RTR phrase (if you don’t know what that is, ask an Alabama fan)!

After church, we went to the “Si Senor” Mexican restaurant, had a very good lunch (our usuals), then back to camp for a relaxing afternoon watching the birds.

Yesterday (Monday 5/21) we took another day trip to Hatch, NM and to the City of Rocks State Park. To get to Hatch, it was a backtrack from the other day on Hwy 26 about 45 miles.  On the way, there is a community called Nutt – and us being birders, find it funny that Nutt & Hatch are this close together.

Hatch is a small town but bills itself as the Chile Capital of the World (that’s chile peppers). They have a world renown Chile Festival every Labor Day weekend and draw visitors from all over. There are several shops & stores that sell chilies, plus they also have lots of colorful pottery and other gift merchandise. We enjoyed visiting several of the stores. Wasn’t lunch time so we didn’t try the restaurant.

After Hatch we backtracked to Deming and then went about 25 miles out to City of Rocks State Park.  It is another park we’ve stayed at a few times and really like it a lot – especially all the rock formations. They have a section of more traditional campsites with electric & water hookups, but all the rest are situated in the rocks. It’s really interesting how they can nestle a campsite right up in a rock formation.

Today was moving on day – headed to Texas.  We left Rockhound State Park pretty early, hit I-10 east, said goodbye to New Mexico east of Las Cruces, and said hello to Texas just west of El Paso. You can’t get across Texas very quickly, so for the first night (tonight) we stopped at an RV Park in St. Stockton (a good 347 miles drive today). And today we gained back another hour - now on Central Time. For the rest of the week we’re going to stay a couple of nights at Lost Maples Natural Area (i.e. state park) near Vanderpool, TX and then on to Kerrville for Memorial Day weekend. 

So, until later ---------