June 3: SW Road Trip Day 25: On to New Mexico

We awake to our funky little room on our last day in Bisbee, Arizona. As yesterday, the aroma of bacon is irresistible. We have a second good breakfast as we plan the day ahead. Alas, Goodbye, Bisbee Grand!

Bisbee Grand Hotel

Our immediate concern is gasoline. We have 171 miles to drive today, and there is not a lot of population between us and our destination. I set the GPS to the nearest gas station. It’s a Shell on the outskirts of town. Sounds good, so we head there. Oops, it looks like this hasn’t been a working station for a decade at least. Our GPS technology is working fine, but the data being used is not up to date! We try another station. It is a Giant brand. We pull in, and, oops, no Premium (we can’t put just any random petroleum swill into our X3). We could drive the half hour to Douglas, which is right on the Mexican border with Agua Prieta. But what if there is a problem there? Am I overthinking this? No, I don’t want to worry about gas. And I don’t want to waste time like we did at the Grand Canyon. We head back to town to visit the Circle K (we used to have one of those on Queen Anne!) and we successfully find the gasoline we need. I smile as I consider that this is going to be the hardest part of our day.

Our destination today is a little town, Silver City, in the hills just south of the Gila National Forest in western New Mexico. The town is several hours drive southwest of Albuquerque. We take AZ 80 east out of Bisbee toward Douglas. At Douglas, we turn north, away from Mexico. The road is lightly traveled and the drive is easy. It is beautiful, but stark. This is desolate country. True desert.

Agave in Bloom

This is the last bit of country that the Apache Nation held out in. We come across a monument to the Surrender of Geronimo, the last of the Apache leaders to resist the White Man with arms.

Monument to Geronimo

We continue north on AZ 80 and cross into New Mexico, where the road conveniently becomes New Mexico 80. Along this section of road, we are looking for a turn-off into the mountains to the west to a small town suggested by our friends Margot & Spencer. I am getting a bit skeptical, because every road to the west for the last 15 or 20 miles has been dirt. I don’t want to take the X3 into a similar environment as in northern Utah (see Spiral Jetty in a previous blog post). But we finally stumble on Hwy 533 just north of Rodeo, NM. (It’s amazing how little I am using physical maps; totally addicted to the electronic ones!) We drive west. The road gradually gains a little elevation until it takes us into the town of Portal, AZ.

I believe that Spencer & Margot have spent many days here birding, and what a lovely spot it is.

Mountains West of Portal, AZ

We were wondering what we were going to do for lunch, today. Problem solved! The Cafe has a lovely little garden just outside the store. They encourage bird visits with an impressive row of feeders.

Bird Feeders at the Cafe

The Cafe's Garden

The Café is preparing to host 120 people for a wedding tonight. There is a lot of activity as the band sets up. We have a chat with a delightful couple from Las Vegas who are here to visit her brother, who works at this café. Should be a good party.

In line with our expectations, during lunch we get a lot of visits of birds. There are even multiple sightings of a cardinal. Sadly, I didn’t see it. But our thanks go out to our Livermore, CA, friends for this side-trip suggestion.

We get back on the road, drive back to Hwy 80 and continue into New Mexico. There aren’t many people…

Dust Devil in New Mexico

Another hour and the clouds are gathering as we head toward Silver City. And a few minutes later, the heavens open up and give our windshield an impromptu and thorough washing. The rains stop as we enter Silver City. We drive through the historic downtown, stop at a Dairy Queen (yumm!) and then head north into the hills to …

Bear Mountain Lodge

This place is a true oasis in the middle of nowhere. If you ever find yourself in need of a relaxing break in this section of the country, make the call. Better yet, book a room in advance (it may be hard to “drop in”) and plan your travels to include a couple of night’s stay here. I am already regretting that we are only here overnight.

We settle into the O'Keeffe Room and decide we must get outside for one of the 3 short hikes available. We are hearing some serious thunder and some of the clouds are very dark, so we, regretfully, but prudently, opt to skip the most interesting hike up to a scenic overlook. Instead, we take the Sunrise View hike. Very enjoyable. We return to the lodge and get ready for dinner. We notice we aren’t the only ones with food on our minds.

Deer at Dinner

We take our places for dinner and have a delightful meal. We share …

Vegetable Lasagna

… and …

Spicy Filet

A lovely meal at a lovely hide-a-way to end the day.

We have now completed the 25^th of our 45 day trip. We are done with Arizona and have seen everything we wanted to see in that state. We have a lot of New Mexico to see. Just a little less than 3 weeks left to see it.