Square Dancing with Friends

It’s always fun to return to our Square Dance “roots”, the Deming, NM area. Using Deming as the hub, we usually dance in Las Cruces, Silver City and Deming. 

Sunday night, Ted Clements was calling in Las Cruces for the Circle 8s.

Monday night, we drove to Silver City with friends Bill and Liv to dance with the Silver City Squares, but I forgot to take the camera.

Tuesday evening we danced in Deming with the Good Times Squares.  Rusty Wright is the caller for the small club. 

Square Dancing with Ron and Anita

We try to find square dances as we travel. From Benson, AZ (covered in a previous post) we moved to Deming, NM. Arriving on Saturday, we picked up a square dancing friend, Bill, and drove another 60 miles to Las Cruces for the Southwest New Mexico District dance. The Southwest District consists of clubs from Alamogordo, Las Cruces, Deming, Truth or Consequences, and Silver City. Seven clubs were represented at the dance. Rusty Wright was the caller, and Jim and Linda Klein cued for the round dances. Dancers filled the floor at the Belton Bridge Center, home of the Blue Bells Square Dance club.

Later in the week, we danced with the Good Time Squares at Deming. Several years ago, while staying in Deming, we saw a flyer for 3 free square dance lessons. We decided to give it a try, and had our first five square dance lessons with the Good Times Squares and their caller, Rusty Wright. We try to dance with the group each year as we pass through. A small club, we only had one square this week.

While in Deming, and the next week while staying in Silver City, we danced with the Silver City Squares. Fred Beem is the caller. This area has lost 3 callers in the past five years to retirement or death, so Silver City is encouraging several of its members to become club callers.

Before leaving the area, we spent a few days in Las Cruces and danced with the Crossfires, a Plus Club, and the Circle Eights.

The Crossfires meet at the Belton Bridge Center in Las Cruces:

The Circle Eights meet at the Munson Senior Center:

Ted Clements calls for both the Crossfires and the Circle Eights.

Exploring on the Geronimo Trail National Scenic Byway

 

On Sunday, we decided to go for a drive over the Mimbres Mountains.  Highway 152 stretches 89 miles between the two towns, but we were told to allow at least 2 hours driving time, due to the many curves and steep grades.  Stopping often for photos and to look around, we took that long just to drive the 60 miles  or so to Kingston.

At the town of  San Lorenzo in the Mimbres River Valley, the highway becomes part of the Geronimo Trail National Scenic Byway.

As you drive, always climbing, you leave behind the gentle slopes of juniper, cedar and scrub oak, and entering a rocky mountain terrain dotted with towering pines overshadowing the road.

 

 

 

 

  At the crest of the mountain range is Emory Pass, at an elevation of 8,828 feet. The pass was named in honor of Lt. W. H. Emory who passed by here with the Army of the West in 1842.  His report is the earliest scientific account of the region, then a part of Mexico.  A narrow road leads up to a viewpoint, affording a panoramic view of the valley below, including Caballo Lake, more than 50 miles away.

 

Dropping nearly 3000 feet during the next 9 miles, the road leads to Kingston, another  town of the 1880s, with a reputation for wild and wooly ways.  A booming silver mining town of more than 7,000, Kingston died as suddenly as it had been born, when the depression of 1893 sent silver prices plummeting.   Not much is left of Kingston today.

We decided to turn around at Kingston, and head back for Silver City.

 

We had our “tailgate lunch” at a pull-off, then discovered we were at the entrance to a cemetery, almost hidden in the trees and grass.  Unlike any cemetery we’ve ever seen, this one is laid out in a most haphazard manner, with little fenced in plots dotting the hillside.

From the very old… 

                  ……to the simplest…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…to the elaborate….

                                            ….and the modern…. ,

this cemetery has to be the most unusual we’ve visited.

 

 

 

 

 

The return trip over the mountains was equally scenic.

Rose Valley RV Ranch, Silver City, NM

 

Our 30th Wedding Anniversary was on April 27.  We chose Silver City as our destination.  We moved to Silver City on Saturday.  We had not stayed at the Rose Valley RV Ranch on the edge of town before, but found it to be a nice park, nestled in a small valley.  The western theme is carried throughout, in the buildings, the antique farm implements, and even to naming of the roads.  

 

Each  site has it’s own little privacy fence.    Wildflowers abound, especially the white primroses, so pretty in the early morning, but gone by 10 a.m.

 

 

 

Set off the main road, the only sounds were that of the songbirds.  We even had a walking area in a field on the property.