In early April of this year we spent a week in the Gila National Forest, camping at the Gila Hot Springs and visiting the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It was very nice and we had a great time. However, the next week we drove into Las Cruces and ended up making an offer on a house - which we should close on this week and move into over the next couple of weeks.

Because buying a house turns out to be distracting, we never got around to posting any pictures from the Gila part of our trip. Today we seem to have caught up to ourselves, and so a quick post of a beautiful camping trip almost 2 months ago..


To begin, some flowers from along the way

Various scenes from the Gila River and the Gila National Forest

 Elk

 A Vulture and the sliver of the new moon at sunset.

 Mike walking below the cliff dwellings.

Snow falling in the valley just east of Gila Hot Springs

The Cliff Dwellings

The white spots in this photo are of snow fluries

And some Birds

A Robin

 A White-Breasted Nuthatch

 One that is not in the books

 A Mexican Black Hawk

 And a female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird

After talking about it for several years, we have made the leap and will be moving to New Mexico (Probably in late June or early July). We made an offer on a house in Las Cruces a few weeks ago while camping in the Gila National Forest, and it was accepted. We should close by the end of May. Then there will be some remodeling. We will be traveling back and forth over the next month or so as things progress.

We will miss our many friends and family in Austin, but we believe we will be returning on visits pretty often. And we hope to have visitors come to Las Cruces too. 

Our new house as seen from the street. 

Our backyard

 The view of the Organ Mountains from the second floor.

We are not posting any photos of the inside yet, because it needs new paint and flooring. We'll show you all more of it as it progresses.

When I retired two years ago, two of my goals were to learn how to draw and to improve my photography skills. I broke my foot on a camping trip in the Fall of 2017. While recuperating I had time to pursue my goals.
I was very inspired by the marvelous illustrations of children's literature author, Duncan Tonatiuh. He combines drawings with photographs using Photoshop. My compositions chronicle my travels with Dennis. I will periodically include them in our travel blog.
Michael

June 2018  Sugarite Canyon State Park - Raton, New Mexico

 November 2018  Big Bend National Park, Texas

 November 2018 Thanksgiving - Memphis, Tennessee

 November 2018  Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi with images from Tishomingo, Mississippi

 December 2018  Brazos Bend State Park, Texas and a visit to the Rothko Chapel in Houston

 March 2019  White Sands National Monument, New Mexico with images from the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

And then we drove to the Chiricahua National Monument in far southeastern Arizona. We had been told that the area was great for birding, and it was, but it was so much more - a very beautiful and magical place. Different Native American tribes had different names for this place:  The land of standing up rocks; The place where turkeys live.


Doors on a storage building at Faraway Ranch

Arizona Madrone Tree

From a walk in the campground

Huckleberry Hound

 A younger Arizona Madrone

Mexican Jays

Echo Canyon

A standing rock

Acorn Woodpecker

Yellow Eyed Junco

Remmnat chimney from the Civilian Conservation Corps residences

 God bless the CCC