I've been to Kilbourne twice and each time I came away with a five gallon bucket of peridotite for my rock garden. Outside of Kilbourne, you can only find this gemstone in Southwest Arizona, St. John's Isle in the Red Sea, and in Burma.

"Deming is rich in heritage tourism," says Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Dorothy Victor. "It has a good mix of ingredients. The buildings tell the story of the late 1880s." A walk through downtown Deming is a living historical tribute to turn-of-the-century architecture and Deming's heyday as an important stop on the railroad. Many buildings are on the register and house stops, plus they hide a secret labyrinth of underground tunnels.

The landscape of Southern New Mexico, West Texas, and northern Mexico has not always looked like it does today. In fact, beginning some 45 million years ago, parts of the region literally exploded, dramatically altering the shape of things. Time after time, volcanoes in the area erupted, spewing forth immense quantities of thick lava and clouds of boulder-to-dust-sized rock fragments. Torrential rains caused mudflows of volcanic debris to surge off the hillsides, drowning valleys and basins in mucky layers of debris. Lava oozed into horizontal and vertical cracks in the older layers, doming up whole areas, forming peaks, and hardening in rooster-comb-like dikes.

It catches you by surprise. Unseen from the state highway, down a two mile spur of blacktop, the City of Rocks State Park rises, suddenly, from a vast yellow plain of waving grama grass. The columnar, pastel stones make an uneven and disheveled skyline. Some tower as high as fifty feet. Others hunker to the earth like brooding trolls. In the interior of "the city," the rocks meld and merge to form arches, curvaceous streets, and dark alleyways. Off to the side, isolated on the yellow plain, small groups of standing stone look like gentle giants - caught in a gossipy conversation.

I used to lug rocks home. I saw a work of art in the form of an easily pocketed little rock, and just had to claim it for my own. In the Southwest one finds so many interesting rocks, this is a common response to a stroll in the country. You can't do this just anywhere, believe it or not - the Park Service doesn't permit it in the National Parks, for example. There are places where rocks should not be picked up: At Trinity site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated, a green glass, 'trinitite,' was created by the blast, and though visitors were begged not to pick it up, they did, and it's all gone.

From the Ringo Kid's girlfriend Claire in Stagecoach, through Miss Kitty in television's Gunsmoke, to the waif-like Diane Lane in Lonesome Dove the prostitute has been among the more enduring images of the literary and cinematic West. She was called "soiled dove", "shady lady", "fallen woman,” "lost sister", "saloon belle", and a host of other appellations. She was quite simply the ubiquitous whore, and her portrait has been painted on many different canvases and in a generous and imaginative assortment of colors.

What vision comes to mind when you hear the name Pancho Villa? Bandit, hero, valiant leader, ruthless tyrant? All of those names have been associated with him. He was not an easy man to define; it would depend on when you met him during his career. Here in Columbus, New Mexico, the same holds true. Some of our citizens have been told by their older relatives that he was a defender of the people. Others say he killed many of his countrymen in their villages.

Thirty miles north of the Mexican border, set against the backdrop of the Florida Mountains, rests Deming, New Mexico, an Old West outlaw and railroad town known for its pure water, prime rock-hounding and annual duck race. Once a stage stop along the Butterfield Trail, Deming was founded in 1881 at the junction of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroad lines. Deming was named after Mary Deming Crocker, the wife of a Southern Pacific magnate. With a population of 14,200, it is the seat of Luna County.

With a fascinating history, a 24-hour border crossing, a varied and unique geology, a New Mexico State Park, a museum, and a mild winter climate, Columbus is a New Mexican village which attracts visitors from the U.S., Asia, and Europe year after year. Columbus has had an unusual and colorful history. The village was first established in 1891, just across the border from Palomas, Chih., Mexico. In 1902, when the El Paso/Santa Fe Railroad Line, connecting El Paso to the West, opened its Columbus station, the residents moved themselves and their village three miles north to the present location.

"House of cards" has a whole 'nother meaning when it comes to St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Deming, New Mexico. According to legend, in 1892, the original structure of this frontier church was financed by $40,000 of winnings from a poker game with Doc Holliday in attendance and hosted by the notorious Lottie Deno. And, for a fact, Lottie Deno made one of the altar cloths used by St. Luke's. The church's design was an architectural triumph of sorts and one popularly celebrated in its day - train station modern. The land for the church was donated by the old Santa Fe Railroad in 1890. The plans for the original structure were those of a train depot. Compare it with the local chamber of commerce and visitor center which occupies an old train station and you can see the resemblance.