Day 7 – Kartchner Cavern Tour, Tumbleweed Twisters, Chile Capital of the World, the Rio Grande River – April 29, 2018

After a late night around the campfire (the highlight of which was Bill channeling his inner Marty Robbins while singing a stirring rendition of ‘El Paso’, and which was preceded by Tim using his axe to split some geodes, and which was followed by great conversation with Pam and Susanne), we got the first tour of the day for the caverns and it was well worth the wait. Much care has been taken by the State of Arizona to ensure the caverns stay as pristine as possible.

We then left the mesquite forests of Kartchner and went east. Just inside the New Mexico border, we spotted a huge dust devil about a mile ahead of us. Just as we approached it, it shot across the highway in front of us hurling tumbleweeds and other debris up to 100ft in the air. Pretty exciting.

We pulled into Hatch, NM, the self-proclaimed ‘Chile Capital of the World’ at just before 5:00PM.  The town sits right along the legendary Rio Grande River (Karen had to convince me that this was, indeed, the same Rio Grande that serves as the border between Texas and Mexico). Fortunately, we made it into the Village Market just before it closed for the day and got the supplies necessary to cook a taco dinner in the Aliner.

The Leasburg State Park closes at dusk, and we made it just in time to get in the gate and get set up before dark. Our campsite overlooks the Rio Grande River. This is just a stopover night and we plan to get out early in the morning to head off to White Sands and Roswell.