Silver City

This past week was a bit on the stressful side. I have to admit to being grateful to my father-in-law for passing at a time that allowed everything to occur as it should and not interfere with my plans to run away to Silver City for a few days.

I’ve been planning to kidnap my man and run away since my oldest arrived in SC a couple of months ago.

This past week just made that desire to run much more intense.

We discovered Silver City during Christmas break last year when it appeared in Mother Earth News as one of the ten best small towns in which to live. It had a college, and that college offered an in state tuition scholarship.

Daughter #1 was intrigued.

I’ve always thought her personality fit the New Mexico lifestyle really well. She’s artsy, eclectic, a bit of a free-thinker, and a wildlife lover. She’s the closest thing to a health nut I have birthed.

Silver City sure seemed to be a good match. It’s a small town, an art town, and it sits on the edge of the Gila (pronounced hee-lah) National Wilderness/Forest. It has quite the cool western history, with the likes of Billy the Kid, Geronimo, and Judge Roy Bean in it’s past.

And the sunrise over the eastern hills in Silver City is gorgeous.

I’m a sucker for sunrises over the top of a mountain.

There have been several trips to Silver City in the past few months. The first was last February for a campus tour. Then came the June orientation, August move-in, the pre-Labor Day car delivery, and finally the runaway kidnapping of my husband this past week.

Oh, who am I kidding. I like Silver City, too. I keep looking for excuses to go over there. What could possibly be the big attraction?

Maybe this will explain it:

1. My amazing #1 daughter is camped out over there in a dorm.

2. There are more 50+ year old men with long grey ponytails and neatly trimmed beards than I’ve ever imagined in my life. I kinda have a thing for that look.

3. There are places to eat like The Curious Kumquat and Vicki’s Eatery that have amazingly simple and somewhat healthy food.

4. Everyone we’ve met has been very friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

5. It’s a beautiful place for a trail ride, and #3 beautiful princess would love it beyond any human capacity to love anything.

6. It’s less than ten minutes into the forest and mountains.

7. You can drive two hours into the forest and mountains and only go 45 miles.

8. That drive is like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s beautiful along the way, and even better at the end.

9. Looking out at the varied landscape, rolling hills, and nearby mountains lets the imagination run wild as to what once covered the area and formed the land. It can certainly challenge some long-held simplistic creationist views, but that’s its own blog post for another day.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie1FOhWsb0o]

10. It’s hard to believe a pile of lava snot can be a fountain of earth energy, but it can. City of Rocks State Park is nothing short of phenomenal.

11. Silver City is a powerful testimony of what a small town in the middle of nowhere can do to revitalize itself. There is some incredible vision in this place, and it’s making some incredible progress.

12. There is something at Silver City that is calling to me. Something or someone I am supposed to find. Something that has yet to fully reveal itself to me.

Don’t worry. I like where I am and I’m not going anywhere long term at this point. Maybe that’s why I like SC. There are lots of similarities, minus the forest access, of course. I’ll be hanging out over there whenever possible on a visitor only basis for the time being.

If you are looking for a new place to explore, consider taking a drive through prairie, desert, Native American homelands, US Government sand dunes, more desert, a couple of border patrol check stations, and a million miles of nothing to arrive at an oasis of beauty at the intersection of awesome and barren.