» Trip 2014 Day 2 Sweetpea's Blog

This morning we drove and drove and drove from Benson, AZ, to Gila National Forrest, NM. The kids had breakfast on a grocery store curb like the classy kids they are, and Kiki found some partially petrified pine sap. That kid finds great things wherever she goes!

It is still really hot, but as we made it up into the mountains it got cooler and cooler, and more alpine than desert. Gila is at the tail end of the Rockies, and so,of course, it has some spectacular things to see. We took the rout through Deming (mostly because I missed the turn at 191 as I was deeply engrossed in Treasure Island, feeling smug because I had found it for free here https://librivox.org. The land is so flat just off the 20, and the wind kicks up dust devils like nobody’s business. I told the kids that they were tornadoes and they needed to watch them carefully for me in case they got too close to the road and killed us. That occupied them for an hour, and they were almost dead silent except when earnestly discussing whether one or the other were too close to the road. One day they’ll know I lied to them, and they’ll be okay with it.

They also pulled out their drawing books they had made from their Auntie. Kiki made sure she recorded the cactus and brush we were passing. There was a LOT of it.

Our rout took us through such places as Silver City (Home of Memory Lane Cemetary and people who look like they could use some AC. But then the drive to Gila begins, and the heat dissipates, and it is only magical. The road twists on for 35 miles, but it curves so tightly, and the grade is simultaneously so steep that one must take it in 2nd gear, so it takes a good hour to get there. But on the way the views keep you occupied.

We accidentally camped at Grapevine campground on a fork of the Gila River. Nothing is marked well there, whether it be roads or rivers or campgrounds. We were not disappointed with our mistake. The campground is free, and it is feet from the river. At that point in the river, it rushes at a good clip, so the water was not stagnate, but it was only a few feet deep, so kids who have any swimming skills can play in relative safety while watched from the person setting up camp.

My Birdie immediately found a neat bug.

There was a family right next to our spot, and our kids immediately became fast friends. Our only trade-off at the free campground was the party going on next door until well past midnight, loud music blaring, blasting dirty words and dirty concepts into the wilderness. My kids had no clue what the words meant, but they hated the music within 5 minutes, and stayed in the river until dark to drown the noise. What made them finally decide to get out was Judah’s insistence that it was time to build a fire. He gathered sticks and wood from the creek bed, lit a match, and there was the fire!