2019-02-01 Fri Van Horn TX to Silver City NM

Super 8 on the Highway last night (Hmm, makings of a country song..) and crappy continental breakfast, but we did see our new best friends with the motorcycle in the back of their pickup from Minnesota again. Today's plan was to go north to catch Guadalupe Mountains National Park and then see how far west we can get. Kinda relaxed schedule since we do not have far to go to Bisbee AZ.
The road goes directly north from Van Horn and there is really nothing for 60 miles until you get to the park, but there is something pretty about nothing but dirt and rocks and scrubby trees and cactus. And it was "unseasonably warm" according to the local weather folks which is great. We hit 70 degrees today and it was clear and sunny (except some sprinkles in NM).
Guadalupe was free with my Senior pass (love it) , normally $5 a head, and it is a pretty small park (hence only $5). This area is where the old sea bed ended and the rocks are the reefs at the edge of the sea (I am sure it is more complicated that that but, heh, I'm an engineer). There looks to be about 2-4 people who run the place and there really is just the visitor center and a lot of hiking trails with remote campsites.
They said spring break is crazy with any kind of group who thinks about hiking showing up. It is also the time of year when anything that blooms, blooms.
The air is very dry and clear here, so we feel like we are really back in the west. Lots of sun and clear air. And we need to drink more since the dry airs sucks you dry out here.
We did a hike to a spring up on the side of the mountain and saw a lot of scat we did not recognize. Turns out they have Ring Tails, which look like a long skinny raccoon and coyotes (we stopped back and asked the nice visitor center folks and showed them our poop pictures).
After Guadalupe, we headed west on Rt180 (the only road west) and again spent a couple hours with spinning radio dial (no stations) and no cell service, but I have been downloading podcasts each night which are a great addition and make the trip go by quickly. Deb found a great (and very busy) Mexican restaurant in El Paso for lunch. El Paso is home to Ft Bliss Army base where 39,000 people work, so it takes up a good part of the city.
We continued west and decided we had enough time to end up north a bit in Silver City NM. We have been here before and it is an artsy town with a couple nice funky hotels right in town. We stopped and booked a room (at Super 8 prices..) and then wandered around town. We stopped at the used book store and a really engaging guy who owned the store (nice Scottish accent) gave us dining tips (the good, bad and ugly), got us up to date on the town's character, and sold us a couple used books of course. We found one of the places he recommended and had a nice supper with the locals. He ran out of the store on our way back through to make sure his recommendations worked out (they did).
Silver City seems a little more foo foo than last time we were here (for this redneck), but it is still pretty authentic. Back to our hotel, the end of another great day.