January 27, 2015. Tasty New Mexico!

CAMPGROUND:  Rose Valley Ranch RV Park.  Full hook-ups.  Great bathrooms, laundry, book exchange and exercise room.  Private sites.  No picnic tables or firepits.  4 stars. $31/night.  Free wifi, but doesn't work.

LOCATION: Silver City, New Mexico in south central New Mexico

WEATHER:  Beautiful.  Sunny and warm. High about 70

We visited Hatch, New Mexico, famous for its Hatch peppers.

The small town consists of pepper stores and Mexican restaurants featuring Hatch peppers. They host a big chile festival in August.

We stopped here and bought a bag of ones designated as "hot".  

I need to find some recipes to use them up.

We drove on a farm road, and passed miles and miles of pepper fields.  There are also many pecan orchards here.

Then, we drove west through the mountains to Silver City.  We drove through a part of the Gila National Forest, about 40 miles of 10-mph hairpin curves.  I did a lot of gasping.  :-). Not many guardrails.

Silver City was our destination.  Someone had recommended this RV park.  We will stay 2 nights and enjoy an urban area for awhile.  

We strolled through the historic downtown, recommended in our guidebook "10,000 Places to Go Before You Die".  It has cute shops and some fine dining restaurants.  We stopped at Toad Creek Brewery and Distillery.  I had an unfiltered double IPA; George had their stout.  We ordered gourmet pigs-in-a-blanket as an appetizer.  Yum!

 

DINNER:  Greek pasta.  I found this recipe which turned out quite good....penne pasta covered with a sauce made from chickpeas, garlic, pepper flakes (I substituted a poblano pepper I needed to use up), bell pepper slices, and kalamata olives.  Topped with feta cheese.  We paired it with a Carmenere from Chile.