From New Mexico’s boot heel to Arizona’s most southeastern corner–Chapter 8

Greetings folks! Bajada Bill and Cactus Kate here in the 80+ degree heat of Patagonia Lake State Park in southern Arizona. The past week has taken us to the most remote camping we’ll experience on the trip.

On our last day in Silver City NM, in the southwestern part of the state, we visited the heart of town where it all is happening at Tranquilbuzz Coffee House. There we spoke with a woman who knows the area and suggested we take a 3-mile roundtrip walk to Little Cherry Creek in the Gila Wilderness.

While outside Tranquilbuzz, we saw John Willow sitting on a bench playing guitar. We met him in 2022 while he was working on a song. Then he was planning a trip to Poland to provide aid to Ukraine. Three years later, there he was working on composing a new tune about love lost. He recalled the 2022 trip, and the school his group built for Ukraine refugees, which was shut down by the Polish NGO.

He told us he’s often photographed as he spends time on the bench with his bare feet on the sidewalk next to his shoes. Perhaps ‘earthing” with his bare soles opens his creative juices. We stopped at June June’s in a new location. The owners make their own ice cream and my cardamom ice cream was refreshing. June June is named for Juniper, the owners’ daughter, a tween who was creating an ice cream cone mosaic on the sidewalk with a friend.

Afterwards we visited the Western New Mexico University Museum and its displays of Mimbres/indigenous pottery. WA friend Patti Ahlrep, whose daughter’s family lives in New Mexico, suggested we would like what we saw at the museum. Patti was right. The place is impressive as New Mexico’s first people’s art is honored. Originally a university classroom in 1917, it was converted into a museum in 1974. The museum website notes: “Mimbres pottery, which dates from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, is known for its distinctive, oft-imitated, black-on-white geometries and figures of animals, people, and other cultural imagery.”

That afternoon we left Silver City, and drove along Piños Altos Road into the Gila Wilderness until we saw a sign for Little Cherry Creek. We parked and walked through sycamore, Alligator juniper and Ponderosa pine below a narrow canyon of stone hoodoos. At some points we crossed Cherry Creek. We imagined the trail would be impassable in big rains.

It’s worth noting a great grocery in Silver City: The Silver City Food Co-op. It’s moved to a new location since July, and offers delicious hot deli food, along with other good co-op food. Our PCC discount works here!

Leaving our campsite #4 at Silver City RV Park early Oct. 30, we drove about 90 minutes to Sunny Flat, an under-20 site campground run by the National Forest Service. We found an available site at this first-come, first-served campground, which has one pit toilet building for men and women, and one water spigot. We snuggled into site #6 under the arms of sycamore and Alligator juniper. Grateful the government shutdown did not close this hidden gem! No phone or wifi here. For that we drove either to the Cave Creek Visitor’s Center, or Myrtle Kraft Library in the village of Portal. Night skies here are phenomenal. The photo taken below was shot about 9:30 PM Oct. 30 with a 2/3 moon shining at our campground:

Halloween day we visited the Cave Creek Visitor’s center, bought guides for local birds and butterflies. Butterflies we saw aplenty; however we were told due to the extreme drought the past two years, there are less insects and thereby less birds in this part of the country with the designation “Global Important Bird Area.” One of the bird celebrities here is the Elegant trogan, which we have seen only in photos:

Wanting to shower–Bill hooked up a solar shower to wash his hair on the two days we did not shower–we drove back to New Mexico’s boot heel and visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum, which gives homage to our reptile brothers and sisters. The $8/senior rate is fair, and we enjoyed the exhibits, the art, the captive reptiles and the nearby showers. It’s got a great gift store and we bought a number of gifts. Their indigenous jewelry is really impressive, though we bought none.

We did not expect to attract goat head thorns on our shoes, but we did. Bill had just read in a warning about Africanized honeybees being in the area. By scraping a credit card across the embedded stinger, it is removed and prevents the stinger from further pumping venom. He used a library card to scrape the coating of goat head thorns from the soles of his shoes. I did likewise. The $10 shower for two is well worth the cost.

Halloween evening, Bill built a fire and we remembered friends and family who’ve passed into the ethers. We feel their presence now and then.

We visited the Portal Saturday Farmer’s market and bought jalapeño jelly and fresh goat cheese from a couple originally from southwestern Mexico who settled in the Portal area. I cooked up pork, mixed it with the jalapeño jelly, served it with butternut squash sautéed in olive oil and maple syrup, seasoned with cumin and cinnamon and served on a bed of farmers market spinach and tomato. Delicious! We relied on the Portal Library for our wifi connection. Librarian Kathleen keeps patrons’ holds behind her desk and recognizes each of her regulars who come by. She hand counts visitors to the library.

Usually we eat our meals at Cafe Marion, and while here we indulged in three meals at the Portal Cafe–good food in a very remote place.

We bought black sunflower seeds at the Portal General Store. The Mexican jays and lady turkeys enjoyed them:

And the skunky-musky aroma? Not someone smoking pot, it was javelina families grazing.

And one morning Bill spied this walking stick taking shelter on Beatrix’s wheel well. Looks like our thin friend lost a front leg. We coaxed it into a box, so we could take a Sunday drive without it being injured had it remained on Beatrix.

Our Sunday drive took us to the village of Rodeo, about 7 miles away in New Mexico’s boot heel. We had hoped to visit the Rodeo Emporium, but it was closed for the day. We parked outside a home and a gentleman came out to talk. He is Joe Mora, long retired as a carpenter in the copper mine smelter in Animas, about half-hours’ drive away. He offered to sell one of his 18x12x2 inch oak cutting boards and we politely declined, though it was made with great skill. He then invited us to attend the 10 AM Mass at nearby San Felipe Catholic Church. Our first Mass with no priest–he visited every other week. Members of the community read parts of the Mass. A woman gave us communion. We were invited to a potluck afterward, but gratefully declined, citing our diet restrictions.

We drove toward Animas and were stopped in awe by a murmuration of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead.

Sandhill Cranes

Our last night, we sat behind the Portal Library and chatted with our son Raymond while a Great Horned owl perched on a sycamore behind us. We were surprised it remained on the branch the 45 minutes we spoke.

Back at our Sandy Flat campsite, we again marveled at the Portal Mountain silhouettes and the moonlit wall above our campground.

OK. Time to end this story. Stay tuned for stories from the Magic Kingdom of Patagonia next week. Ciao!