This place ROCKS!!

Faywood, NM
City of Rocks State Park




This is our campsite (#6) in City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico.  This "city" of volcanic rock formations sits at 5259' elevation.  It's made up of large rock pinnacles and columns formed 34.9 million years ago when a large volcano erupted.  Beautiful hikes and views all around.



It's amazing that while driving up to the park you see nothing but flat desert landscape.  Then you come over a rise and there's all the boulders!

We are camped here with Curt & Glenda of Camp Lowry.  We have no electricity, water or sewer hookups at our site so we are boondocking (or dry camping).  After we both set up we went over to their rig for appetizers and dinner.  We had previously picked up some goodies at St. Clair Winery in Deming so we munched while the guys grilled up some delicious steaks.

 

We taught them how to play Mexican Train.  It's a domino game my parents taught us.  It's a lot of fun.  Curt was in the lead most of the time and then Steve won at the end. 

 

Curt & Glenda's rig (site #2)

We took several hikes around the area and climbed up and around the boulders.

 

 

   

Amazing balanced rocks everywhere.

Look at Glenda hold this boulder up!

 

 

What a view.  You could see forever!

It's like being on another planet.

 





Here is Hurley checking out a grinding rock.                Having some alone time.

 

One really cool campsite.

 

      

My favorite.  The "leaves" are very stiff.  It feels like it's ceramic.

 

Hiking to the top of another hill just across from the main area of rocks and the campground  There is a covered rest area that had a lightning rod constructed in stone.  Not sure why but it was interesting.

View from the rest area back towards the campground.
Curt and Glenda's rig to the left, ours to the right.

We loved our campsite.  Here are some more pictures of it.  We had a very private picnic bench and fire pit surrounded by more rocks.

 

 

 

Well we had a great time with Curt & Glenda and now they are headed east to visit family in Illinois.  We will see them next winter in Arizona.  We were going to head out too but I got an e-mail from Pam saying they were in the area and wondering if we are still here.  Well, we decided to stay a couple of more days.

 

Shorty after Curt and Glenda pulled out, Red & Pam arrived.  Yay, more company :-) 

 

Red & Pam

They just bought a new Solitude Toyhauler.  It's beautiful.  I can't believe I didn't get a picture of it.  They have a garage that houses Red's toys and there is a nice deck off that!

One of  Red's toys.  It's a helicopter-like drone with that takes areal pictures & video.  Very cool!

 Here's a little demo

 

 

Pam and I decided to do a little more challenging hike to the top of Table Top Mountain.  We hiked about 5 miles or so.  There are some geocaches at the top we hope to find too.

Going up the first tier.

 

We made it to the top!!

At the top looking across the plateau.

Striking a pose at the edge.  I love this picture!

Our view at the top while we have a rest and some lunch.  This is looking down at rocks with the campground in the far distance.  Great 360 degree view!

 

   

 

   

We found both of the geocaches.  They were hidden very well!

We saw this way out in the distance before we headed back down and wondered what it was.  Well, good to know!

Since we did not actually follow the trail down because we were exploring, we had to bushwack our way down.  This was the least steepest part.  No broken bones, so we did ok.

Looking back up at the second tier where we had to climb down with no trail.

This picture was for my niece.  She's a Disneyland fanatic.

After our great hike, Pam made a great hearty soup and we had dinner at their place.  They taught us a game called Joker.  It's kind of like Aggravation with cards instead of dice.  It was fun and the girls beat the guys 3 - 2.

We had a great visit.  The last time we saw each other was the Rally back in 2014 when we were both wannabe Full Timers.  We will see each other again in the winter in Arizona.

 

We were going to head out the next day but I received a notice from Art & Suzan from Ontario, Canada on RVillage.  RVillage is kind of like facebook for RVers.  A great way to meet up with others while on the road.  Anyway, they wanted to know if we'd still be in the park the next day so we could meet each other.  Well, we decided to extend our stay again.  That's the nice part of having plans in jello as they say.  We can change them anytime we want.  Art & Suzan have been fulltiming for at least 15 years.  They boondock almost exclusively.  They were such an interesting couple.  What was nice is that they were previously boondocking out in the Gila National Forest where we were headed next.  They gave us some great hiking info and the location of the spot they had camped in.  Boondocking is generally free if you're on BLM or National Forest lands (as well as others). Sometimes a small fee may be required.  What a great way to be "out there" with no one else around!

 

We did some hiking around the rocks and searched for the pictographs and petroglyphs.  What is the difference?  A Pictograph is painted on with powdered minerals, blood, charcoal, or other substances.  A petroglyph is made by carving directly into the stone with a rock or other instrument.

 

Two pictographs of Kokopelli, a fertility deity.

A petroglyph.

 

Another awesome campsite.

And another.

 

 

 What a great place this is!