| More empty roads. |
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| Heading up into the mountains. I had to pull over and take a picture of the beautiful mountain lake. |
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| And take a piss. This is one of those toilets that's just above a hole in the ground. |
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| A view of Gila National Forest from 7440 feet. |
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| The forest is nice, but I came for the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. |
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| To get to the cliff dwellings, you have to cross this bridge over... |
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| ...the mighty Gila River. |
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| While it was hot, there was shade in spots on the trail and it didn't seem too bad. |
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| We're headed up there. |
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| Some prickly pear cactus. |
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| Up the trail we go. The grade wasn't too steep. I would not be out of breath climbing like I was on other steeper climbs on the trip. |
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| Up on the cliffs. |
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| I guess there is some advantage to living up in cliffs. |
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| In the late 1200's the Mogollon people (remember them from the petroglyphs?) decided to stay put and call the caves home, building rooms, crafting pottery and raising children in the cliff dwellings for about twenty years before moving on. |
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| I'm pretty sure the black on the cave walls comes from the smoke from fires. |
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| Walls in the front of the caves probably helped keep out the elements. |
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| The caves aren't very deep, but I suppose they don't really need to be to be able to live in them. |
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| The old structures are fairly impressive. Of course there's a pretty good chance they were reconstructed at some point. |
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| More walls. |
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| Alright, it's sort of hard to notice at first, but those small red pictures on either side of the picture are petroglyphs. The one on the left is a little man and the one on the right looks like a snake. |
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| This one is more easy to see, but I don't know what it is. |
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| I wonder how many people lived up in this cave. |
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| Real estate agents in the 13th century would have had some challenges with the listings for these places. On the downside, it's a hike to get up here, but one advantage is... |
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| ...the view of the small canyon. |
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| Gotta got down at some point. |
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| Down the ladder we go. |
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| A look back up at the cave. |
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| You can eat these things but getting those spikes out would be a good deal of work first. |
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| This smaller cave isn't open to the public. |
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| Some desert flowers. |
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| It was a long and winding road down
from the mountains to Truth or Consequences where I would be staying
the night. The reference reminds me that I listened almost exclusively to podcasts during all the many hours of driving I did. One of those podcast was a Beatles podcast. |
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| Down from the mountains headed toward Caballo Reservoir ahead. |
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| Another night, another small motel. This one wasn't that great, but it was quite inexpensive. |
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| The guys in the office said I was getting a room with three beds. I thought he was kidding, but apparently some larger party cancelled and I got the room. |
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| I didn't find much that interested me much for dinner, so I chose the Pacific Grill, a seafood place. It is highly recommended on Trip Advisor, but there aren't that many restaurants to choose from in T or C. |
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