Chiricahua Desert Museum, Rodeo, NM

Rodeo, NM is a very small village, but a little outside is the Chiricahua Desert Museum and Gift Shop. The private museum is nicely set up with everything related to reptiles. Books, stamps, snake venom treatments and even an entire exhibition case full of (mostly empty) wine and beer bottles, all related to snakes in one way or another. In a separate room are two dozen terrariums with a collection of live reptiles. For a donation of $3 it was all mine for half an hour.

Some photos can be seen here.

Location:
31.9285N    109.0392W    4161 ft

Chiracuha National Monument, AZ

Today's trip was a 100 mile round trip over the Chiracuha Mountains to the Chiracuha National Monument.

I started this trip late morning. The first part was on a local, but paved road to Portal, AZ. Since the road I wanted to take was closed due to construction, I took the Foothills dirt road to the north, then turned to a smaller dirt road towards Paradise, then a rough mountain dirt road over the mountains. At Onion Saddle at 7800 ft I reached the High point of the day. The same dirt road continued on the other side of the mountain downhill to the Chiracuha National Monument. The roads in the park are paved.

The dirt roads from Portal all the way over the mountains were in pretty good condition and did not even request 4x4. A high clearance though was necessary for the washes and the steep grades, where rain usually damages the road. The road was winding and in some places narrow, but never a problem. Most of this trip was in the Coronado National Forest (no private land after Paradise) which covers most of the public land in the southeast of Arizona.

The visitors center in the Chiracuha National Monument is very small and there were only a few visitors in the park. Mostly smaller RVs and cars with RVers (you could tell because most of them had towing equipment mounted). This park is way of the beaten track. The nice paved road goes all the way to the view points at Sugarloaf, Echo Canyon and Massai Point (6870 ft). The park is also called the "Land of Standing Up Rocks" because of the rock pinnacles which can be seen everywhere. More information about the park is here.

While the drive to here was 2.5 hours, I took the direct route back to Onion Saddle, but then straight down to the paved road leading to Portal and back to Rodeo. (80 min). On the way back I even saw a couple of deer grazing on the wrong side of the road.

A bunch of photos can be seen here.

Location:
31.9285N    109.0392W    4161 ft

Trip to Rodeo, NM

Todays trip was a 121 mile ride via Tombstone and Bisbee to Douglas (the most southern city in AZ). From Douglas AZ-80 turned north again on the eastern side of the Pendregosa Mountains. The ride continued with a stop at the Geronimo Surrender Memorial in Apache, AZ to Rodeo, NM.

At Rusty's RV Ranch near Rodeo I settled at a 200 ft long site with full hookups for $12 + tax with Passport America. What a deal ! This park has only 40 sites but they are all huge pull throughs. At the happy hour outside of the office with Rusty, the owner and her parents, who are helping her to run the RV park I already met a few of the residents. A very familiar atmosphere for sure.

This area is well known for sky gazers and birders. Some of those activities will be on my plan for the following days, although I am not a sky gazer nor a birder, but it never hurts to learn something new. On the program is also a visit to the Chiricahua National Monument in the Chiricahua Mountains, which are part of the 306° view I have from my site.

A few photos of the trip are here.

Location:

31.9285N

109.0392W

4161 ft