Yesterday we drove over to Silver City, NM to visit the Western New Mexico University Museum. They have the world's largest collection of pottery from the Mimbres Culture. And we have become quite interested in their petroglyphs and pottery. So we drove over, talked about them, took pictures, and went to lunch. We planned to join up with a friend who lives near there, but he was unable to join us. We missed visiting with him but still had a great outing for the day. 

Here are some of our finds: Some pieces are fairly modern, but most are 800 to 1200 years old, and are labeled in the photograph. 

A Human Effigy Pot

Jack Rabbit 

Quail bowl among a stack of unsorted pottery

And, okay, this next picture is not an example of Mimbres pottery. 

The museum is in a restored historic landmark building that was constructed in 1904. 

The men's room from 1904 had unique features that deserved to be saved. 

Thus, "Historic Urinal."

After more than a year with no visitors, we have had three sets of house guests from Austin in the last two weeks. Three of the visitors were long time friends and we were happy to make a new friend. We shared some of our favorites places in the Las Cruces area with our friends.

Sleepy Grass Campground

Wild Irises

Lilacs in Cloudcroft Village

Sighted along the Mexican Trestle Trail in Cloudcroft

Red Columbine

Vinny and Dennis

Bluff Springs Recreation Area

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

Kokopelli, the Flute Player

Dennis, Jamie, Ainge and the Organ Mountains

El Paso Airport

Mesilla, New Mexico

Tony and Michael at Aguirre Springs Campground

Sunset on the Sacramento Mountains

Tony at White Sands National Park

Michael in the dunes

Bleached Earless Lizard

 Last week, Mike and I spent a few days in the Lincoln National Forest near Cloudcroft, NM. It is still early spring at around 9000 feet, and it was very lovely, if still a bit cold in the mornings. (Okay it was jacket weather all day long.)

 

 

Mike fighting with the law again. 

Wild Strawberry

Wild Iris

Broad Tailed Hummingbird

 

Wild Horses loose in the forest

Facebook does not have a very good history with showing decent quality videos, so we have posted two videos of the wild horses on youtube:  

 https://youtu.be/2Br_orzRUHw  and 
https://youtu.be/Lp9Dtq4O_Js