Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway, Silver City, New Mexico

    

    

Monday night we decided to head to downtown Silver City to get a bite to eat.  They have a nice downtown area, all of the buildings were in good repair and we did not see any vacant buildings like you see in many towns.

We decided that “if” we could find a parking place, we would eat at the Little Toad Creek Brewery Distillery…we had looked over their website and felt we did not need to dress up, and they seemed to have a good selection of food.  We were right on both accounts.

    

Well, we found a place just next door….but the curb was so high that we had to walk in the street to the corner to get up to the Restaurant/Brewery.  Glad the traffic was so light!

    

It was a quant little place, lots of selections of beer they make and local beers from New Mexico, along with other libations.  But we were there for the food, and it was good.  We shared a plate of Cowboy Nachos, which was hot to the taste, but we have had better nachos.  I had a Pesto Club Wrap, while Marcia had a LTC Burger, and they both were delicious.  Our waitress was a local gal, looked like she was in high school but I am sure she was in her twenties.  My guess is that half of the people in there were tourist.

    

Today we took the 90+ mile scenic route called Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway, from Silver City, goes up to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, over to San Lorenzo and back to Silver City.  It took us 4 1/2 hours, which includes a 20 minute stop at the Gila Cliff Dwellings Visitor’s Center.  There is no way Marcia could have walked the Cliff Dwelling path, and I decided with my “healing leg” that it would best to skip it.  Had it been another week or so, I would have walked it.  Today I have hardly used a cane, and then only first thing in the morning when my leg is still stiff. 

    

    

Although we have been on better Scenic Routes, this was still nice.  The road from Silver City to where it meets New Mexico 35 is narrow at times for a two lane road, it was rare to see another car, and speeds of 20-25 were in order due to the winding road.  (If one wanted to take a motorhome up here, just catching NM 35 all the way is doable.  At the Hot Springs there is a RV park with access to the Hot Springs.)  Along the way you see many different rock formations, and there are a few areas for panoramic shots.

I love this feature on our new Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ70.  I use to have to put these type of images together with Photocshop Elements which would take me up to an hour sometimes to get it to look right.   Now the camera does it for me, and the results have been real good.

This picture above is of the Gila River near the Visitor’s Center.

This last panoramic shot is of the Chino / Santa Rita Copper Mine, one of the oldest mines in America.  Who knows how long this mine will be active.  The company that owns it owns other mines, some of which have been put into an inactive stage and reclaimed.  Although all signs of mining will not be removed, the huge scar of the mine is covered in local ground cover, and eventually much of the signs of it ever being a mine will be gone…..along with all the Copper, Gold and Silver they were mining.

While at the mine, I found us a new tow vehicle…..except this one is so big we can drive the motorhome up onto it, and with tires like that, we can go just about anywhere….just not very quickly.

With both cameras out on our day trip, I found this shot hidden on the new camera that I took while going back to the Condo from the Orlando area a week ago.  Not sure where Marcia was, but as soon as she got up, I know who took over her chair….and with a little persuasion, I got Bubba to jump up there too!