The Organ Mountains - view to the southwest from the Bataan Memorial Highway
We have just returned from our spring road trip through Southern New Mexico! The weather was beautiful; sunny most of the trip. Destination Silver City was quiet, refreshing and full of the beauty of the nature of the southwest. Bedecked with its usual array of multi-cultural characters, the sleepy city and its citizens quietly went about their business as we buzzed the community and surroundings. A fourteen-mile mountain bike ride from Boston Hill across the Continental Divide offered previously unexplored terrain and a few sore muscles for our technical director as well as plenty of ravens, javelinas, and even an eagle sighting.
Other stops included a tour of the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. With a student population of 25,000, this relatively small, quiet campus of southwestern Aggies offers a wide range of study as well as newly built housing and all the comforts of home for its students.
Ruidoso was beautiful, the roads were clear. It did cloud up on us one day which actually added to the magic of the enchanting mountain village. The River Ruidoso was running full and fast this time of year. A slight mist offered a refreshing breath of clean air scented with magnificent pine.
Note that just about the only restroom in town available for public use is at the Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway Visitors Center, though if you go, you may have to share with the locals!
Roswell was clean and decorated in its alien attire ready and willing to serve those stopping through and offers a wide selection of services, restaurants and shopping for visitors, all with friendly attitudes.
This tour of southern New Mexico includes many fabulous stops such as White Sands National Monument, The White Sands Missile Range, The Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation and the Inn of the Mountain Gods, The Three Rivers Petroglyph Site and Recreation Area and the New Mexico Museum of Space History near Alamogordo, Lincoln National Forest near Ruidoso, Ski Apache, rock-hounding near Deming, the City of Rocks just outside of Silver City, the Catwalk at Glenwood, the Gila National Forest, as well as the Gila Cliff Dwellings.
All in all, it is a glorious drive, with unending vistas, snow-capped peaks and beauty ranging from the desert sands to mountain pines. You can’t beat this trip!
For more information visit these areas at www.guidebookamerica.com/nm/ www.guidebookamerica.com/nm/
Cheryl Bruedigam, Editor
Guidebook America
www.guidebookamerica.com
