Lots of history in this small area, to include one of the major residents here being the first Cabinet Level official convicted in the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.
Found all this out via a quick read of a book titled Tres Ritos (Three Rites), the original name of the area where three creeks converge in the valley. Written by Gary Cozzens, it was a book one can borrow from the campground office.
I would end up using captures of some of the pictures in the book to show "then and now" further in this post.
After it got above freezing, I geared up warmly and drove Fiona, the '99 Patrol sidecar rig all the way to the Three Rivers National Forest Campground, about 8 miles away closer in to Sierra Blanca Peak. The road is well maintained so driving a big RV to the campground is not a big deal, though the campsites didn't seem to be very big as I cruised through.
On the way back towards camp, I explored every side county road I came across:
The above county road would end at the border with the Mescalero Apache Reservation, stopping any further progress:
Getting closer to camp, I took a different county road to check out the Santo Niño de Atocha Chapel
I didn't go inside the church but I later found another blogger
who did: LINK
Circa 1960s
Source is Gary Cozzen's book
Wooden Cross, I wonder if it used to
be on top of the church steeple?
Santo Niño de Atocha Cemetery, note the white cross
atop the cliff in the background.
The cliffs are part of what's called the Palisades
The ruins of a building near the church, with
the two crosses atop the cliffs visible
Just past these above ruins, is the dirt road leading to the Stations of the Cross trail which apparently leads all the way to the top of one of the Palisade Cliffs. I found another post where someone hiked this rather steep trail which saved me the effort! LINK to see pics from up top:
There's 13 stations of the cross along the hiking trail, I just took pictures of the first three:
closeup of the above first station
I then returned to camp and finally got around to putting the Rideon Tire Sealant into Yagi's tires. This is in expectation of picking up cactus spines while riding my TW200 in Arizona later on this trip.
As part of the installation, you ride the motorcycle 4-6 miles to spread the sealant evenly within the tire's inner tube. As part of this riding, I rode east towards US54 and took more pics for then and now:
Source is Gary Cozzen's book
The school is now a private residence
circa 1950
Source is Gary Cozzen's book
A couple of the "animals" on display:
Anyone want a Barbed Wire Rhino?
I wandered about with Yagi, exploring side trails that I'd skipped while on Fiona. Didn't get very far on any of them, they either ended up in very bad conditions:
or became very rocky and seemingly miles of the same stuff:
or, I hit the reserve point on Yagi's tiny gas tank (1.8 gallon) and had to ride back towards camp to get more gas as there were no nearby gas stations.
2 comments:
I love places like this that are not crowded. I would need to do some training to make the entire trail, but would like to try.
Did the trail today, wasn’t too hard Oz....very rocky though
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