Our goal today was Silver City, NM, an old mining town up in the hills. On the way, however, we decided to visit Chloride, a semi-ghost town in the hills above Truth or Consequences (yes, that really is the name of a town). It was a good ways up to Chloride, maybe an hour to drive the 30 miles, but it was pretty country – rolling hills, rocks, dry but with small trees, and at one point cows on the road.

House for sale oin the way to Chloride – maybe Ballard’s prices aren’t so inflated

Chloride itself reputably has 11 residents, but there may be a few more part timers. The ghost town part has been fixed up by the family that owns it. We got the tour with the adult daughter of the couple who purchased it back in 1977 and started fixing it up. She told us the whole story about how her parents had stumbled on the property while on vacation and, once they realized it was not just an old western movie set, decided on the spot they wanted to buy it. They managed to find a local who knew something about the property and who owned it. She let them use her phone to call the woman who owned the property, but warned them the woman could be rather crabby and might even cuss them out.

Well, they managed to contact the owner, and she started swearing as soon as she answered the phone, and kept it up through the whole conversation. They persevered, however, and were finally able to make a deal with the owner. After they finally got off the phone, they told the woman who let them use the phone that she was right, the owner really was a nasty piece of work and asked how she happened to know such a disagreeable person. “Oh, she’s my sister”, was the reply.

One building had been the general store. It had closed back in the early 1900’s, but when it was closed, all the contents had been left intact. The current owners have turned it into a museum, still set up as a general store and featuring all the goods they found when they opened it up.

Museum

Tami spotted cool lab equipment! (for assaying ore)

Mike spotted a wall of cool tools!

Tami does not want to wear a hoop skirt

Another building had been restored to house a cafe where we had lunch (I got green chili chowder and Tami had the ubiquitous green chili burger). Several other buildings had been set up as exhibits, as a gift store, and as rental cabins. We really enjoyed the visit and thought it was definitely worth the drive up.

The cafe

Exhibit cabin

Inside cabin

Chloride National Forest

After we came back down we drove through Truth or Consequences, but were NOT impressed. Dry and dusty and not much to see.

From there we took the “short cut” to Silver City. The route did considerably shorten the distance (think one side of a square, with the other route being the other three sides of the square). The price was a climb up windy mountain roads up over a high pass. It was slow but beautiful. Tami really earned her beer by the time we reached Silver City!

Nearly to the pass

From the pass

Silver City has a very cool old downtown with more than its share of galleries, surrounded by a significant area of modern sprawl. Unfortunately because it was late afternoon on a Sunday, all the galleries were closed. We did manage to find a nice brewpub, however, which also had some great pastrami and green chili burgers (see below).

As usual we forget to take pictures BEFORE we ate, but here are the remenants

We are staying at the Palace Hotel, a fun little old fashioned hotel, actually a bit reminiscent of the Palace Hotel in Port Townsend.

Tomorrow we are off to Bisbee, AZ, home of the fictional Sheriff Joanna Brady from the series by JA Jance, a mystery author we have enjoyed over the years.