In Search for Geronimo - "One who yawns"

After my encounters at the City of Rocks Jerry and I headed further south towards the town of Silver City, NM where we would check out the Gila National Monument where the great native American Chief, Geronimo of the Chiricahua Apache had his hideout.Of all American history I have always been fascinated by the lives of the Native Americans and their history.and so when I read that Geronimo had his hideout in the Gila Forest i was turned on to check it out.
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is a U.S. National Monument in the Gila Wilderness (The Nation's First Wilderness Area) of southwestern New Mexico. The 533-acre (2.16 km²) national monument was established by executive proclamation on November 16, 1907, by President Theodore Roosevelt.^[2] It is located in the extreme southern part of Catron County. Tourists can access the site by traveling from US 180, from Silver City, New Mexico, to NM 15.



We drove helter skelter looking for ways to get into the monument area as there were not too much information to go by. But we eventually managed to end up at a park ranger office right next tot the face of a cliff with a large river flowing by.We were told that it would soon be closing time and that we had to leave before it gets dark by the only park ranger there and we did. But when it got near dark we decided to reenter the park and do our own exploration as i was bound and determine to find out what was the mystery of this place that Geronimo would chose to make his hideout.
We arrived for the second time late evening and by whatever was left of the light of the setting sun we decided to climb the cliff face straight up towards the cave we had seen earlier.(I laugh at myself today after learning that there are other much easier ways to get up there, 'Which a six year old and a seventy year old can do". But we were in an adventurous mode those days and we did clamber up the cliff  till we got into one of the caves and by then it was getting dark. Jerry who normally was very talkative was quiet for once and I started to question my own sanity over the whole move. There were small noises of creatures here and there that kept us close to each other and with flashlights we managed to get ourselves into the huge cave that reminded me of an overturned cauldron facing the sky. We sat facing the mouth of the cave which was the starlit skies and the only sound other than the little creatures was the rushing of the river way down below us.
I must admit that I was a little disappointed in the beginning till on looking out at the stars i began to realize that the flickering lights from the stars was slowly creeping into the cave roof and the cave was getting brighter and brighter as more lights flickered from the roof face of the cave. Soon the whole cave was lit like there was a fluorescent lamp was turned on somewhere and we could make out everything there.
Jerry and i were shocked beyond believe but we kept quiet not daring to break the silence. We just sat there and after while decided to leave the cave as it was getting late. I realized then that we had stumbled upon a small secret that the native Americans had stumble upon long ago and used to hold pow wows here before taking on the White man.

Geronimo - 1829 - 1909

Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé [kòjàːɬɛ́] "one who yawns"; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader of the Bedonkohe Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a battle with Mexican soldiers. His Chiricahua name is often rendered as Goyathlay or Goyahkla^[2][3] in English.

After an attack by a company of Mexican soldiers killed his mother, wife and three children in 1858, Geronimo joined revenge attacks on the Mexicans.^[4] During his career as a war chief, he was notorious for consistently urging raids upon Mexican Provinces and their towns, and later against American locations across Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas.^[

We left the monument with a trail of thick blue smoke behind us as the Chevy was in much need of oil and the windy drive up and down the road did not help the engine from burning oil. Sometimes i wonder myself whether what we experienced was a hallucination of our own or some natural phenomena that the crystals in the rock surface had picked up light from the stars or the moon and lit up the cave. Sometimes I even thought that some old Indian Spirit was playing a trick on us simply because we were crazy enough to have made the trip; we deserved something to talk about.