City of Rocks

It’s Sunday and we would like to get away for the day and give the kids a break from their life at the hotel.

We are heading West towards Deming and then turn north towards Silver City. Then we follow the signs to “City of Rocks State Park”.

The City of Rocks was created 34.9 million years ago by a volcanic eruption. Then over millions of years, erosion sculpted the rock formations seen today. The eruption was from the Emory Caldera, centered near Hillsboro Peak at the southern end of the Black Range. The eruption was estimated to be a VEI 8.5 eruption. Also related to the eruption was the 314-square-mile (810 km2) Kneeling Nun Tuff.

Source: wikipedia.org

We spend some time with the kids exploring the large sculptured rock formations in the shapes of pinnacles and boulders. Some of them are as high as 40 feet (12 meter).

In Silver City we have lunch at Mc Donald’s then we pass Santa Rita Copper Mine in Hanover. The mine is still in use and is one of the most modern operations in the United States. We continue on up trough the mountains and forests towards Hillsboro – we stop and take a walk through a dry riverbed and take closer look at the big trees up here. We also see a deer – the first life deer the kids have seen. We pass Hillsboro and continue on to HWY 25 south back to Las Cruces with two happy but tired kids in the back of the car.