Gila Cliff Dwellings

Today we went back in to La Mesilla to shop a little more and check out the Wild Bill museum – which turned out to not be a museum at all – rather a gift shop. We also went to the post office and mailed ourselves some of the souvenirs we have been collecting. It feels good to clean out the car a little bit here and there as we go!

Then we drove into the Gila Wilderness!! Yay!! I had been there with Tim on our first road trip 5 or so years ago, so I was very excited to show it to Bryan as it had been one of my favorite places! It was still awesome :). Bryan got to drive in on my favorite windy road. The Cliff Dwellings are great because you can go right in them and look around. Bryan also got a cool walking stick made out of the stalk of a yucca plant.

Tonight we thought we would also try to find the hotsprings tim and I had bathed in last time. It was easier to find than I remembered, even though it was getting dark. Sadly, the water seemed to have been running pretty high and the pools normally created by a circle of rocks were high - so the water was WICKED hot! We tried for quite some time to get in, but even putting our feet in was painful. We eventually ended up in a section up to our knees. It was a curious sensation there, though, because the water on bottom was cold river water, while the water on top was hot hot springs water - our feet were cold and our knees were burning.

So we trudged back, with another failed hotpsrings attempt (at least this time we didn't have people from another country whistling at us!). We went back to our campsite (for free) at Upper Scorpion (in Gila National Park) and made a fire. Earlier I had found a stick that I used my very special marshmallow stick carving knife on. Turned out to be the Best stick EVER! I decided I would try to use it the erst o the trip and get it home to Seattle - it was THAT good :).