We had planned to camp at a National Forest campsite ten miles south of this amazing dwelling. We had heard about the winding road, "well I suppose you could drive your motorhome on the road," and then the night time temperatures was going down to 22 degrees. For whatever reason, Morey checked in with the NF office and found out that the Mesa Campground (which had electric hookups so we could stay warm) was closed due to maintenance.
A new plan, we stayed in Silver City at an in-town RV park where we could stay warm, and even go out for a nice dinner at Diane's Café. We don't love RV parks versus our usual National Park/Forest or State Parks, but it was convenient to our plans. We then rented a car for the day to avoid the windy drive.
All worked out well, although we missed not camping at one of the other NF campgrounds that we passed on the route to the Gila Cliff Dwellings -- although we would have been cold. We didn't miss out on the amazing dwellings.
We were rewarded with a self guided 1 mile hike up to the ancient dwellings built by the Puebloans of the Mogollon area. Forty rooms were built inside five natural caves, which we were able to tour walking from one open cave to the next. Amazing to think that the wood beams still in place were 700 years old.
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