A great variety of RV's come to Rock Hound State Park

Turtles take their homes wherever they go.

In this post I want to feature the great variety of RV's that come to Rock Hound State Park. Some are huge motor homes and some people show up with a tent.  We try to find a comfortable place for all them.

This first picture is our camper.  It is a 27 foot Zinger by Crossroads.  We are camp hosting, and have the best site.  It's winter so all the trees are bare.

Here is site 8 and 1/2.  Ours is site 8.  Both of these sites have full hook-up. It is one of the amenities of camp hosting.  The gentleman who occupies this works three days a week in the Visitor's Center.

We only have one site set aside as a handicap site.  It is number 9, located next to the rest rooms.  Note the concrete pad and walkway.

Site number 10 also has full hook-up.  It sits back in an equipment storage yard and is occupied by another volunteer.

This is site number 11.  It also has full hook-up, and is currently occupied by another camp host.  We each work 4 days on and 4 days off.  Sometimes we swap days so we can attend to personal matters.  It is nice to have cooperative camp hosts.

This is a better view of the fifth wheel that is in number 11.

Now rather that taking you on a tour nuumber by number in a chronological order, I am going to show you the great variety of RV's we had on this particular day.  Notice how much room there is in every site.  We have received many compliments on the amount of room each site has, plus how nice the park is, how clean the restrooms are, and how nice the showers are.

Some people come in vans of various sizes.

This van occupies a huge site.  These are first come-first serve sites so anyone can occupy the site no matter what size RV they have.

We see various sizes and models of the Class-C type motor homes.

This modest pull behind occupied site 27, which is a pull-through site, and the first site in which we camped in June.  We became friends with the gentleman who occupied it, and friends with his rescued dog, Bucky.

Bucky is a very friendly dog.  I walked up to the trailer once and knocked on the door.  I was afraid Bucky was going to "friendly" me to death.

Of all the small trailers, pop-ups, and tear-drop trailers, this is my very favorite.  I  visited with the owners at length and they told me in great detail how they built this.  It is very light-weight.  They were an older couple, and they disconnected this trailer from their car and pushed it in by hand.  The lady did the paint job.  She made it in the image of a turtle because turtles take their home every where they go.

We have seen several makes and models of this tee-pee type pop-up.  They fold down to a low profile for towing.

This is the other extreme.  A big diesel pusher that tows a jeep.

This motor home was towing a smart car.  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the car, but we decided it definitely was a smarter way to go if you had a motor home.

This view was taken from above the group site.  The group site can accomodate four campers, and is used as an over-flow area when it is not reserved by a group.  Groups have first priority.  It is the only camping area in the park where people tend to feel crowded.

Some guest have a car and non-camping trailer, but still choose electric sites.  It occasionally gets down to freezing, so they plug in little heaters.

The following pictures are of the various types of campers in the non-electric sites.  We have 5 non-electric sites.  They are relatevely far apart, and can even accomodate larger units.

This is the best non-electric site in terms of location.  It is the highest site in the camoground.  You can see Deming, all of the campground, and everything west of here.

When the campground gets full, we start using the day use area as an over flow camping area.  We even park them along the road in front of the Visitor's Center.

One brave soul even showed up on a Harley.  We let him put his tent on the far end of the group site.

So there you have it.  Everything from motorcycles with tents to huge motor homes.  Rock Hound State Park is a favorite campground for many visitors.  Come and see us sometime.

Luna Membres Memorial Museum

Today I would like to share a few of the highlights of the Luna Membres Memorial Museum in Deming, New Mexico.  Deming is located just 15 miles from Rock Hound State Park. It is home to an execellent museum, and the price to visit is perfect (free).

The feature title of the museum is a journey in time.  The museum has on display artifacts from Native American settlers to more modern times.

These two photos represent several dipictions of arrowheads that are on display mounted on the wall.  Several shapes and sizes can be clearly seen. Many of the arrowheads were collected from the Membres Valley, located Northeast of Deming about 70 miles.

These two photos are of a display case featuring pottery and arrowheads from the same period. The only negative we found in the museum was the sparsity of information about some of the artifacts, and the lack of a guide.

I had Margaret stand next to this clock to give you the perspective of it's size.

The clock was carved and built by Louis Heinrich Frederick.  There were several Grandfather clocks in the museum, but this one was the most spectacular.

Here is another clock, and there were several china hutches with dinner settings.

Here are a couple of them.

We wandered through numerous displays of Native American artifacts and kept coming back to these. We went to the front of the museum and asked the attendants what they are.  No one seemed to know.  I was sure they could not be part of an animal's  skeleton because they are rings, and no animals that I knew of had such bones.  Finally I located someone who knew what they are.  Can you guess? They had been imported from coastal regions.  They were probably highly valued by the Indians.

This is a war club that belonged to Spotted Eagle of the Sans Arc (Itazipcho) Lakota Sioux. He carried this during the Battle of Little Big Horn.  At the time he would have been 42 years old, and considered "old man Chief."  He probably did not actively participte in the battle.

I include this display case because of the white owl that Margaret paticularly liked.  There was another one outside the display case, but the picture is out of focus.😀

These two display cases feature toys as we transition into the Spanish American part of the museum.

Here is a full size display in an enclosed room.  There were lots of items on display for this period.

One of several such displays.

This area of the museum is on the second floor.  It features medical equipment from the 50's.

This is an old iron lung.  It was used for people who had contracted polio and needed it to breathe.  There was also one on display for children.

There is a nice little business office on display.

The old time camera display was interesting.  I looked to see if they had a Brownie Star-Flash like the one I used to take pictures with, but did not see one.

I am going to conclude this post with this display of World War II memorabilia.  There were so many more items of various things, such as a spinning wheel, knitting, button hooks, nut crackers, high school sports, and the list goes on.  If you are in Deming, NM, and you like museums, don't pass this one up.

Annual Festival of Lights

The Friends of Rock Hound State Park presented their annual festival of lights on Saturday night, December 9th.  The public was invited to stroll amongst the 1100 luminarias lighting the walkways, adobe walls, native garden, and the labyrinth of the park's visitor center.

They were treated to hot cider, cookies, and a visit from Santa. Toys for tots were accepted by the Marines.

This is the view of the luminarias that reached clear down the road to the pay station at the entrance to the park.  I wanted to show them before dark so my blog visitors could get an idea of how many there were.

Here is a view looking up the road towards the camp ground.

This is the entrance to the visitor center parking lot.  People were already arriving.  We estimated between 250 and 300 visitors.

This is a path that surrounds a garden just above the center.  Luminarias were placed everywhere, including on the roof of the visitor center.

On the side of the hill along the east side of the visitor center rocks were placed to spell ROCK HOUND.  Luminarias were placed all around, as you can see.  I was hoping they would clearly spell out the sign once it became dark, but the light did not cooperate as can be seen further along in the blog pictures.



Santa was getting ready for the children.  I did not get any pictures of him with the children because Margaret and I were on duty in the visitor center meeting guests and answering quetions.

Guests were enjoying the campfire and the hot cider.

Here is the ROCK HOUND sign as it began to get dark.  The lights sort of spelled out the words, but not as clearly as I had hoped.

This another view of the roadside looking towards the campground.  I found it very difficult to focus my camera after dark.

Here is the view back towards the entrance as it was getting dark.

Welcome to the visitor's center.

This is the garden west of the center.

Our Ranger had to check the lights on the roof and make sure all were still lit.

The entrance is now lit up and the visitors are gathering.

Here is a picture taken from across the road from the center.  Nothing compares with actually being there.  The Annual Festival of Lights turned out to be one of the unexpected perks of being a camp ground host at Rock Hound State Park.  Thank you, Friends of Rock Hound and Mr. Robert Apadaca, Ranger and Mannager of the park.