We had hoped to have a leisurely morning at the park before leaving to head into New Mexico but the winds were picking up and we wanted to get on the road before they got too bad.  It was a short drive from Franklin Mountains to our friend’s house (Becky and Ed) in Las Cruces.  The interstate isn’t the place to be with the RV in high winds, so we took back roads, driving along the pecan farm lined road.  Ed works from home so there wasn’t any issue with our early arrival.  We were happy to take over their couch for blogging and use their laundry facilities.  When Becky got home from work, we headed to one of their favourite local restaurants Thai Delight for dinner, I had the Spicy Beef Thai Delight and Sharon had the Shrimp Thai Delight as well as some really good Spring Rolls. 

On Friday we finished the last of our laundry and Friday night we went to D. H. Lescombes Winery and Bistro, a place we really enjoyed the last time we were in Las Cruces.  Sharon and I had red wine flights with a cheese plate followed by a Jalapeno-Bacon Wrapped Shrimp appetizer, Sharon had Spicy Seafood Carbonara and a Ghirardelli Port Brownie, and I had German Schnitzel and Crème Brulé. After the wine tasting we picked 2 bottles to buy plus some Ports. An enjoyable evening with good friends. 

Saturday Sharon went with Becky and Ed as they did errands, I worked on the blog and we watched Survivor’s new season premiere, luckily Becky had PVR’ed it😊 Sunday we did a 10 km hike with Ed on the Sierra Vista Trail but unfortunately Becky couldn’t join us as her allergies were acting up.  Some of the area is open range so we did have some cattle on the trail.  As you hike, you have beautiful views of the Organ Mountains.  That night we went to Luna Rossa Winery & Pizzeria for dinner, we shared a wine flight and I had very good Pizza, Sharon had Pasta con Gamberetti (more shrimp)😉 To top off the meal we had some great gelato!  Another great visit, it’s now time for Becky and Ed to head up to Canada so we can host them at our place.

As we hit the road with clean clothes, we decided we should clean the RV, so we found a big RV wash to get some of the dirt road dust off!!  We headed to Deming where we had a fantastic lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Si Senor.  I had Shredded Beef Gorditas and Sharon had a combo platter, so we pretty well covered all of the menu items.  We had lots of leftovers for another meal!  They had the best homemade hot salsa we’ve had, so we bought some to go which they put in a takeaway drink glass😊 We drove north to City of Rocks State Park.  We’d been here before and really enjoyed it so wanted to go back.  We couldn’t believe it when the site we booked turned out to be the exact same site we had 5 years ago! 

On our first day we decided to use our bikes and ride the trails.  We knew Sharon’s tire was flat, so I fixed it before we headed out.  We did the Hydra Trail around the campground and up to the observation point trail where we enjoyed the view of the rocks.  We then rode 3 kms down the road to the Cienega Trail. We were halfway through the 3.5km trail when Sharon got ANOTHER flat tire!!  The hazard of riding on a thorny desert trail.  As she pushed her bike out and we tried filling the tire in hopes of riding back.  A couple just finishing a hike on the trail offered her a ride since they had an empty bike carrier on the back of their vehicle.  Sharon was happy to accept as there was no way air was staying in the tire.  Time to patch the hole in the brand new tube, that just lasted 1 hour, we hope it holds!

Not wanting more flats, we decided to hike to the top of Table Mountain the next day.  We had to go to 5729’ elevation to get cell coverage so Sharon called her Mom to say hello.  On the way back to the campsite we did the Petroglyph hunt.  We had instructions from the on where to find them , for example “look across the road from site 28.  You will see two rocks close together…”.  We had fun wandering through the rocks looking for them all.

The next day before we left, we viewed the exhibits in the Museum and then wandered around the rocks again. You can wander for hours in these rocks😉

Our next stop was Faywood Hot Springs for their special mineral pools.  The pools are all shapes and sizes, some require clothes some don’t.  They even had camping split between clothing required and clothing optional.  The pools closest to our RV site were “Clothing Optional” but we opted to wear our bathing suits.  These were small pools 105 F and 110 F (too hot).  We then went to check out the clothing required pools, one pool was very hot (I liked that one) and Sharon liked the 102 F large pool. That night we went back to the large pool and had it all to ourselves.  It was nice sitting in the hot spring looking at the stars.  The campground was very rudimentary at Faywood, and they could use better filtration in some of the pools so it was interesting going there but we likely wouldn’t return.  We’d still pick Riverbend in Truth or Consequences as a hot spring location, only problem, it was fully booked.  Prior to our departure we did another quick soak before heading south to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus.

The main reason we headed south was to avoid cold night-time weather in northern New Mexico. Any further south and you’re in Mexico (5 kms from the border).  We arrived in Columbus around lunch so went to Irma’s Mexican restaurant.  We literally just walked in the door and the waitress said “we have enchiladas with green sauce, enchiladas with red sauce (which was good and spicy) and pork with rice and beans”, I guess that’s the menu!  We started chatting with Irma and she was telling us about the big parade that was happening on Saturday.  She said, get your lawn chair set up at 9am, the parade will come right by here.  We now had a plan for Saturday.

We wrote about this park’s history in a previous blog, so we won’t repeat that (RV Trip 3.6 Pancho Villa SP).  We did a walk around the park looking at some of the historic buildings when the park was known as Camp Furlong in 1916. We climbed up Cootes Hill for the view, talked to another LTV couple in the park before we enjoyed a fabulous sunset.

The Saturday parade was part of the Fiesta de Amistad and was to mark the day Pancho Villa and his Mexican army raided Columbus on March 9, 1916.  Today they recognize the event with a remembrance ride, the US riders on horseback ride to the Mexican border (5 kms from Columbus), they meet up with the Mexican riders and together they return to Columbus.  We had heard conflicting stories on the time of their arrival, so following Irma’s advice we headed out for 9am.  Well, at this time, some of the riders were beginning to head south to the border.  It would be a while before they all returned.  We waited around, talked to other people waiting, watched a HUGE wide load try to navigate the corner (I’m sure they weren’t thinking it would be busy on a Saturday morning), watched the same green car and big quads drive back and forth multiple times.  Finally, the parade of about 150 horses and riders came by and stopped right by us.  We then followed them to the main plaza where they had an official ceremony.  Then it was time to watch the dancing, check out the stalls and get some food.  We were lucky to be there the day of the big Fiesta in this small town. 

Sunday, we had to do a bit of a detour as the dump station at Pancho Villa was closed so we backtracked to Rockhound SP to use their dump station (the prettiest one we’ve ever been to).  If only we knew, we could have spent the night there, but we had reservations at a Harvest Host in Arizona so that’s where the next blog will start.

I’ll also include here in closing the next beer selection. I bought this Hoppy IPA variety pack from ODELL Brewing Company and my favourite of the four was the Juicy Tempo IPA😉