Our USA Adventure - Days 9 to 14 - Las Cruces, City of Rocks, Silver City, Gila Cliff Dwellings, Tucson with a ParkRun, Arizona Sonora Desert, Titan Missile Museum

This was the hotel next to ours in Las Cruces, The Big Chile Inn and this, so they believe is the biggest Chilli sculpture in the world

It was just an overnight stop on the edge of Las Cruces, slightly mad lady with some indoor cats two of whom she persuaded to come and say hello, so that was a good start. There was also a local brewery, walkable. Well, for us anyway, Americans don’t walk anywhere! Beer has changed so much in the US, when we first came 20 years ago there was Budweiser and Sam Adams and not much else. Craft breweries had started to appear in small pockets when we were here 8 years ago and now they are everywhere, including Victoria Falls and Panama! It’s not cheap though, or a full pint and very strong! This particular brewery ‘Icebox Brewing Company ‘ did however serve a 20oz glass, so we could have a proper pint, which confused our server no end!

The very well preserved Palace Hotel, our stay in Silver City

Silver City was our real destination, another high, and cool stop, which we went to via City of Rocks state park, a great place to amble around in. Fred had recommended the Palace Hotel, right in the centre of the town. We had been unable to book one of their smaller and available rooms on Booking.com, as it only had a 4’6” bed, so wasn’t suitable for 2 people! We rang them up and explained this was a standard double in the U.K.!

Its a lovely old hotel, built in 1882 (which is old by US standards)

Just when I thought we’d finished with Billy the Kid it turns out this was where he lived with his mother and stepfather until she died. We did the town walk before visiting the Little Toad Creek brewery for dinner. Right opposite our bedroom we had been told their WiFi might work better than the hotel WiFi in our room, and so it did!

Billy The Kid grew up in Silver City in a log cabin like this. It's not the original as that was on Main Street, now the Big Ditch. Unknowingly the main street of the town was situated in a dry river bed which, unsurprisngly often flooded. Each time it was repaired until a huge flood came through and swept it all away leaving a ditch some 12 feet deep. Another, later flood carved it deeper to bedrock about 25 feet down!

The main reason for Silver City was the cave dwellings at Gila (see our walk round with more photos: click here), well them and the drive to get there. A really good day out, through amazing scenery, not that we could see all of it, with the clouds! Though we didn’t get much rain, there obviously had been some! It did rain when we were back in the hotel, which was a bit scary as the guy running the hotel has told us he’d seen water up to the level of the kerb. Nothing particularly odd in that you might think, but this kerbstone was nearly two feet high! That and the fact that the river is a long way down, in what had been Main Street, till it was washed away!

Contemplating the views at City Of Rocks

From Silver City the plan had been Tombstone, but it was full for the weekend, so we are in Tucson instead, we’ll head back on ourselves on Tuesday! We stopped on the way at Shakespeare Ghost town where we had a really interesting couple of hours being shown around by the stepson of the last woman to live there. There are only a few buildings left, though he is trying to slowly restore some of them. He could have talked for hours, and really he did, we joined, after the first building, and another couple joined about halfway through, so we all dropped out when we got back to where we had started! And this goes on all day!

Gila (pronounced Hee-la) Cliff Dwellings 

On arrival at our hotel in Tucson we were hungry, though it was but early, and our three hour drive had turned into a four hour drive. We’d crossed a timezone , not something we generally have to think about! Oh well, Happy hour at the Catalina Brewing Company! I had an interesting couple of ‘pints’ of pink beer, Blueberry Blonde. We also met an interesting 20 something year old called Hope, who had been traveling through the U.K. with her father, and couldn’t wait to go back.

Inside of of the old cave dwellings occupied for only about 25 years up to 1300AD

Yesterday Brian did one of the 2 Park runs (click on that link and you can see the list of finishers. I came in at number 11) on our three month route, no wonder he didn’t mind coming here and then backtracking to Tombstone! Very small, but he enjoyed it and didn’t do a bad time. Fortunately he got back before all the hotel had run out of hot water! There may be no more before we leave on Tuesday! It’s broke! After that we went to the Arizona Sonora desert museum. We have entered the land of archetypal Mexican cactus. They are absolutely amazing. This isn’t all the museum is about, but it is part botanical garden, part zoo, part museum. Must have been good, we were there for hours, and again didn’t get rained on, despite the thunder and the very threatening clouds! The slightly cooler weather did mean that we got to see everything. Though still not a rattlesnake out in the wild. We are still looking, and did see someone’s video taken about 2 minutes earlier, no sign when we got there though! Our guide was most unimpressed that he had taken video rather than running away, but she was a bit like that. She knew lots, but was a bit irritating! Still we only had her for the first hour.

Now I am not in anyway a superstitious person or believe in spirits, but look at this photo I took in one of the rooms in the cave dwellings. See those faint white circles? John, who we met in NZ 10 years ago and was well into this sort of stuff reckoned they are Orbs and represent spirits of dead people who used to live there. Others would say that its just light reflecting off the lens. However, I take hundreds and hundreds of photos and rarely get this effect. Descendants of the people who used to live here claim their ancestors are not dead but still live amongst the ruins. I don't believe in this stuff but it is quite creepy!

As we drove back on the loop road through the desert we were aware of a horrible noise on braking. Think we might have run out of brake pads! Fortunately there is a Jiffylube just down the road which we are booked into on Monday!

Took this photo on the way back down from the cliff dwellings. You can even see the butterfly's proboscis poking into the flower

We did go out today, a short jaunt up the freeway (not much braking on the freeway) to the Titan Missile Museum. Home of the only ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) still available for viewing, in its silo, anywhere in the world. The silo hatch has had to be sealed half open, with 7tonne blocks on the track, and a glass hatch, which along with the hole in the nose (RV or reentry vehicle) where the warhead would have been is enough to satisfy the Russians that it is still safe, as their satellites look down!

And this lizard hiding on a fallen tree trunk. See how well he's camouflaged. Thanks to Jackie's eagle eyes!

Neither of us warmed to our guide, and hoped it wasn’t going to be a rehash of yesterday. It wasn’t, he came to life when he took us into the bunker. He had served down there when he was 19, and so brought it to life, the tension was palpable. On their arrival (2 officers and 2 enlisted men) at the base, they had to make the first of 4 phone calls to have the gate opened from inside, the second call had to made within 3minutes from the top of the shaft. If they had problems or unwanted company all they had to do was dawdle and the door wouldn’t be opened! They were then on duty for 24 hours, just the four of them. No phones, no TV, no communication with the outside world, except the two radios from opposing sides of the country through which the message they never wanted to hear would come. At the warning bell, two people would independently note down the coded message, they would then change folders and it would be repeated, so a four time verification of the message to launch an ICBM. Both the officers were armed incase there was any dissent and they all went through regular psychological examination to ensure that they could do it. They had to be in pairs at all times, except for 4 hours they were allowed each in the domestic quarters. Security, and verification being hugely important obviously! They didn’t know what their three possible targets were, so how many millions of people they would be destroying, and they didn’t want to.

I love this sort of thing! On the drive back to Silver City from the Gila Cave Dwellings we passed this point, the Continental Divide. On one side of this sign all water will drain into the Atlantic Ocean and on the other it all drains into the Pacific! Fascinating! When you think of the immense width of the USA we're at this point. We found out afterwards that there is a Continental Divide hike that many people do. I suspect they don't do it all in one outing as it goes from  the tip of Canada right down to the tip of South America - a very long way! How about that for one of our future multi day hiking challenges Simon Cocker? He won't be reading this as they are in South Africa at the moment, so I'm safe!

If the Russians fired a bomb they would have about 30 minutes before it arrived. 25 would be taken by the powers that be to check, verify and make the decision. The message would be sent, so they had 5 minutes to retaliate, this should take 3. They then would have no idea of what was happening in the outside world for the three weeks that the air, food and water would last, before they would attempt to go outside, assuming they hadn’t been blown up, and that the Russians had missed them by enough that there was any chance of getting out through the doors. If not, well, suffocation, starvation, or a bullet were really the only options!

24 hours in the silo, with another 6 to get to and from the base, every three days! Stress? We don’t know we are born!

We passed this old saloon, that I think is still open as music was coming from inside but the door was locked. There's very few other buildings around. I love finding these old places! Its here

I had to stop and take a photo of this guy. He was standing by the side of the road and seemed unconcerned at us driving right next to her

Nearly back in Silver City we came across this copper mine and loved the colours in it

See that truck down there?

These are the size of the tyres on it!

Onto Shakespeare Ghost Town and here's our host telling us all about these old, original buildings from the mining days when 3000 people lived here. Do you see the squirrel under the window on the right?

In an old saloon bar - all original. Do you notice our host is carrying a gun in a holster?

Again, these are original fixtures and those holes in the walls are real bullet holes. He told us that when the customers got bored they would take to try to shoot flies!

In its heyday this used to be the towns hotel and, although in a pretty unsafe condition now, it is his ambition to renovate it and again open it as a hotel

In Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. These large Saguaro cactus only grow in the Sonora desert and this particular specimen is probably between 150 and 200 years old

Woodpeckers like to nest in them and, although the flesh inside is toxic, they burrow deep inside to rear their young

Here's one looking out

It's a landscape we're unfamiliar with. This is a forest of Sagura cactus

And, although these are in captivity, these are animals found locally. These are Prarie Dogs

These are Javalinas (related to pigs obviously)

Black bears

Rattlesnakes

Coyote. Basically a lot of things that want to kill you and there are all around this area - be careful!

These things won't kill you (and weren't in captivity). Here's a tiny humming bird

Iguanas

Here's a cactus just coming into flower. Apparently after a lot of rain the desert can come alive wwith cactus flowers 

A  bird! Helen S, we need you! Helen says it's a Common Rose Finch. Thank you Helen!

Then we went on a drive through the actual desert and visited these ancient petroglyphs that the ranger was anxious we shouldn't miss

But first we had to walk past this sign! We didn't see any, but we kept a sharp look out!

Today we visited the Titan Missile Museum. What a day - it was fabulous. The buff coloured structure in the centre is the missile silo. You can walk up to it and look over the top...

And this is what you see. A 103 foot high ICBM missile, with a nuclear warhead capable of totally destroying 900 square miles - nothing would remain. It's purpose was deterrent, the idea being that no enemy would use theirs first as it was known they would mutually be destroyed. It has worked - up to now!

These are the main engines on the first stage. These Titan II missiles were used for the Gemini space mission in the 1960's and sent astronauts into space. Instead of a warhead they put a space capsule and called it a rocket!

On the right there is Dave, our guide. He's worked in the military all his life and worked on this base from the age of 19. We went through a mock launch and what it might have been like in the event of a launch being required. I have to say, it was chilling! He put us right in there and told us how it was. It was incredibly stirring and emotional and it was down to his experience and knowledge - he was there and experienced that stress every day. Amazing! Visit while he's still there if you get the chance! By the way, do you see that big spring at the back there? The building we are in 35 feet below ground is supported by eight of those springs. The idea is that if a nuclear strike happened nearby it would be like an earthquake, but those springs absorb the vibrations and help them to carry on and launch their missile. He tells us that the incoming missile would need to be at least a mile away, any closer and they wouldn't exist. Nothing can withstand a direct hit. And they knew that Soviet ICBM's were targeted on this very spot! For them to survive, an incoming missile would need to have missed them by at least 30 miles, otherwise rubble would bury them and they could never get out. There were four of them in there and there were two guns with six bullets in each, they either suffocated, starved our used the bullets

We walked past two of these blast doors...

Along this tunnel...

And came to the second level of the silo. Inside there is the missile

And there it is. The black section is the RV containing the nuclear warhead (equivalent to 9,000,000 tons of TNT - he said that if a train were carrying that much TNT and you were waiting at a level crossing, it would take 24 hours to pass!)

And there it is looking down. At any time that could be launched within three minutes! There were something like 54 of them scattered around the US. Click on this link to see on Google Maps where this one is. It doesn't look much but it's there. Modern missiles have replaced these obsolete one's now, they are all still armed and ready to go at any moment, 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. It's so chilling because it's real and it's still with us

Lets finish on a happy note, this is a humming bird and he's very cute!