City of RocksState Park

The City of Rocks gets it's name from the beautiful volcanic rock formations. The park is about a square mile in size, and the rocks rise to about 40 feet in height.

We were travelling north on highway 180 from Demming, NM towards Silver City, then took highway 61. Our destination was Lake Roberts, but since it took us right past the City of Rocks, we decided to pay it a visit, looking forward to a return visit when we could camp there.

This is a distant view of the City of Rocks as you approach from Highway 61.  The view is awesome, and gets better the closer you get.

I posted these photos in extra large format so my readers could see more detail of the rocks and surrounding area.  There are hiking trails and campsites nestled in the rocks (primitive, of course). Improved sites with electric and water are also available.

Yes, there is water in the desert.

I could not resist putting in this beautiful photo of these flowers. The desert is not bleak, and these flowers enhance the City of Rocks.

Percha Dam State Park and nearby areas continued

I mentioned there were some areas near Percha that we visited. About 6 miles away is Caballo Dam State Park.  Another 17 miles farther north is the town of Truth or Consequences, and near there is Elephant Butte Dam State Park.  I'll show a few of the pictures we took in some of those places.  

No, we did not tour all of these areas on our bikes, but we did ride around the campground with them. Margaret's bike is the three wheeler.  She couldn't keep her balance on her two wheel bike so we got her this three wheel bike.  She has gotten strong enough to ride over 5 miles per day.  There is a paved road just outside the park at Percha where we often rode.  We were pleased to find mulberry trees with ripe fruit.  We hadn't seen those since we left California.

This is one of the boat docks on Elephant Butte Lake.  The main boat dock is closer to the town of Truth or Consequences.

This island is in Elephant Butte Lake.  I wondered if this is how it got its name.  With a little imagination it could be thought to look like an elephant.  It is a volcanic core, similar to Devil's Tower in Wyomming.

Here is Elephant Butte Dam.  It is a concrete gravity filled dam. 
The construction was begun in 1911 and completed in 1916.  It began to be filled in 1915.  It was part of the Rio Grande Project to provide irrigation and power to south-central New Mexico and west Texas.  There was an effort to name it the Woodrow Wilson Dam, but the name Elephan Butte prevailed.

The series of dams stop the flow of the Rio Grande River except when they are releasing water for irrigation.

The river looks like this below the dam.  The picture is taken in the Elephant Butte Dam Recreation area.  There is a nice foot path along the river.

Here is a view of the camping and day-use area.  Most of the campsites did not provide much shade, and I did not see any electric or water hook-ups.

This a typical campsite available at Elephant Butte State Park. Unfortunately, there is not much shade available.  Most campers are probably more interested in playing on the lake.  There was no shortage of power boats, jet skies and water skies.

Percha Dam State Park

Percha Dam State Park quickly became one our favorite state parks near Las Cruces.  It is 56 miles from our house to the entrance into the park.  One of the best attributes was the abundance of shade trees.  Although there are plenty of sites at Leaseburg Dam State Park and good hiking trails, there is little shade at the campsites.  Percha has a lot of shade and easy pull through sites.  Again, it is recommended to make reservations ahead of time, especially in the winter when the "snowbirds from the North" begin to arrive.

Our campsite with my truck and kayak.

This is a center area between the campsites.

My former training in entomology influenced me for this photograph.  It is an antlion trap. They dig into the sand and create a trap into which ants wander.  Once an ant is in the trap the ant tries desparately to climb out.  The ant keeps sliding towards the bottom and into the clutches of the antlion.

 This creature came to me on his own.  It is a large bark beetle.  They are rather harmless to humans, as long as you are not too squimish.  The red mark on my wrist was not made by the beetle.

I placed my friendly bark beetle on a nearby cottonwood tree. Cottonwoods are numerous in the area, and probably the species from which it emerged.

We did not just see insects.  There was plenty of wild life, and one evening we saw a couple of cottontail rabbits jumping up and down.  I suspect it was some sort of mating ritual.  By the time I got my camera one had wandered off.  They are well camofloughed so you will need to look closely to see this one.

In case you think New Mexico is just desert, here is a picture of a swamp within the park.  We could hear bullfrogs croaking at night. What a treat in the desert.

This a great view of Percha Dam.  These dams are built along the Rio Grande to divert water to the farms.  There is a lot of farm land along the Rio, and a great variety of crops.  The most famous of the crops are peppers.  You have to be careful when ordering food because the add them to everything.

This is the dry camp area.  These site do not have electric or water hook-ups, but they are really nicely kept sites.

This display board shows many recreational areas close to Percha Dam State Park.  We visited several of them, and I'll put a couple of pictures on the blog for my visitors.

This is some farmland just outside Percha.  Here they are growing alfalfa hay, and just down the road they were growing onions and sweet corn.