Caballo Lake and Chloride, New Mexico

Tuesday-Thursday, October 7-9

Tuesday we left Socorro and arrived at Caballo Lake RV Park.  It is a very nice well kept park.
We had full hookups with 50 amp service for only $15 per night plus electricity.  We stayed 3 nights at an average cost of $18 per night.  We would definitely stay here again if we are ever in the area.

Each space was very wide and had its own picnic table.  Every evening from 4:30pm to 6pm the owner had a social time.  She served snacks and all campers were invited to come.  We decided to go.  It started out exciting.  I had just taken 2 steps from the coach and heard something.  I turned and saw a diamond backed rattlesnake. The owner got a shovel and Tic chopped its head off.  It had 3 rattles & a bulb on its tail and was probably about 2 ft long.  We did not get a picture. 

On Tuesday when we arrived there were only a few of the long-term people.  More and more arrived in the next couple of days. From Caballo Lake we had planned to go to Silver City and the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  However after arriving we learned that the road to Silver City was closed because parts of it had washed out due to the heavy rains.  Oh well.

As we stood on the step of our coach this is our view.  Awesome!

As the sun started to set some high clouds rolled in.  Beautiful!

We were so enthralled with the beauty of these mountains on the other side of the lake.  The sun has set a little more.  

This same evening Tic decided to continue taking pictures of the sunset until the moon came up.  Sun is pretty much down now.

Tic took lots of pictures as the moon rose but I am not going to put up all of them.  This is the last picture taken and it was about 8pm.  God is awesome!

We walked to the lake from the campground.  This was the view towards the north.

Suddenly a pelican flew in and landed on the water just in front of us.

This is sunset on the last night we were there. 

Chloride, New Mexico 
The RV park owner told us we "needed" to drive into the mountains to the west and go to the ghost town of Chloride.  We decided that sounded like a fun trip.

We are headed to them there hills.

You can't read this display but it was all about the town of Chloride and the surrounding area.  Chloride was established when silver was discovered in the area.  It died when the government decided gold would be its currency base.

This is one of the original houses still standing.  The tractor is from the era also.  We are still learning what to take pictures of.  Seems we forgot to take a picture of the store/museum and school house/gift shop.  The man that gave us the tour of the store was the current owner.   He bought the store totally intact from a great-nephew of the original owner.  The original owners sent their son east to school.  They thought he would come back and run the store, so they boarded the store up to save for their son.  He married a woman from the east and never came back.  The current owner bought the store just as it was when it was boarded up in the early 1900's.  The post office was inside the store.  It was VERY interesting to walk thru.  There was even a rare bookkeeping/cash box system.  It was amazing the sophistication of it from the 1920's.  We think we remember the store was boarded up about 1923.  The school house/gift shop was closed so we did not get to go in it.

This tree was in the middle of the only street into town.  Someone had a sense of humor and put up a sign that said "Chloride National Forest".  Cute.  There might have been 10 people actually living in town now.  The museum owner had developed a small RV park and was getting ready to open a small restaurant.  He has lofty goals for the town.