Sept 22nd
We are full steam on our way home.  We wish that the trip wasn’t ending but we are already looking forward to our next trip – a GMC Western States rally in Las Vegas.

We planned to have a pretty short day today because we only planned to get to the Deming, New Mexico from Carlsbad.  Just south of Carlsbad is another national park called Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  It seems to be primarily a hiking kind of place so we planned to just stop at the visitors’ center and take a short walk to the ruins of a Butterfield Stagecoach stop dating to the mid-1800’s.  The park is really scenic but the weather didn’t cooperate and there was a low fog that hid the mountains pretty well and even made driving a problem for a while.

Like the first night of the trip we are spending our last night in a New Mexico state park.  On the way out of the Southwest on August 1st we spent our first night at Elephant Butte State Park in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and loved it.  Tonight we will spend the night at the City of Rocks State Park near Faywood, New Mexico.  It was a little off of our planned route but Carol really wanted to go and that is all it took for me to want to go too.  City of Rocks State Park is a place she remembers from her youth in Las Cruces, New Mexico where she lived from age 7 to age 14.  It was a place to stop for a picnic on the way to her mother’s twin sister’s house in Bayerd, New Mexico near Silver City.  The park has a nice campground that is located less than 100 yards outside the rock city.  It is easy to walk among the rocks and is extremely scenic.  We are glad that we drove the extra 30 miles off of I-10.

Here is a slide show of the day’s photos – don’t forget to click the little square at the bottom right.