Aug 27 Day 07 - The Old Spanish Trail - Van Horn, By God Texas!

Today's the day kiddies, I'm on The Old Spanish Trail Southern Borderland Trunkline. Could'a fooled me, the traffic is amazing. My God, El Paso seemed more like LA than some small cozy little western shoot-em-up. 

But I digress,  the day began with a long friendly conversation with the motel's Mexican yard maintenance man. He's got an old Harley basket case he's attempting to resurrect and asked if I knew anything about them. I don't. That's the God's truth, but he seemed convinced that I must since I was riding a Triumph Bonneville. He was also convinced I must be Mexican because I'm dark skinned (Hey, it's August for crying out loud!) I volunteered I might  be Ethiopian but he wasn't familiar with that particular tribe. 

We waved bye, he wished me a safe journey and I faded off into his imaginary world of Harleys ridden by one of his fellow Hispanics. Life is truly grand sometimes.

Just a few miles down the road I stopped for this historic marker and learned a bit more about the first citizens of the area, the Mogollon  people after which came the Apaches. Us white folks arrived much later in the game.

This is what the surrounding area looks like today, probably not a whole lot different than in times past. Excluding wire fences, tarmac roads, traffic signals, etc.

My second stop of the day was for breakfast at a Denny's in Deming, NM which is also on my list of Old Spanish Trail towns. Something occurred while I was having breakfast that really impressed me. 

An old Mexican guy, possibly a street person, came in and sat down at a table close by mine. I watched as the wait staff obviously ignored him and he didn't seem to mind a bit. When I finished and was paying the tab I commented to the hostess, also Mexican that no one was attending to him. The gal laughed and said "He comes in here often and sits at a table for awhile and watches people, then eventually leaves. He's never once ordered anything and we don't mind that he comes in." I liked that attitude a lot more than running him off. Deming might be the ideal place to live if you longed for Mexico but didn't want to leave the states. 

Out on the road again I spotted another tourist attraction, the oft ignored but seldom passed rest stop. This one was really different, ergo the following pics. You remember Miss Kitty from Gun Smoke, right? Gun Smoke kids, black & white TV. Like before the Internet? Just look at the pictures and don't tax your brain, it's not that important. 

Hombres...aka Real Men, no whiners allowed

aka Miss Kitty

 After leaving Deming I continued east on highway 180 which took me  to Las Cruces where I spotted a sign with Historic Mesilla Village so I peeled off the slab (aka freeway) and headed through town to see it. It's a cool place to visit, old adobe homes and shops that are well preserved. People still live and work there and today it's part of Los Cruces. Which probably means they get taxed to death by the big city folks, right?

Kinda makes you want to break out the old tuba, eh?

Nice yellow convertible next to me

After spending time wandering around Mesilla I continued my ride east. Lunch & a petrol stop at a Pilot station worked well and I got to park next to an old Honda Shadow. Fun. Yippee.

Suds for lunch

After disposing of my manly lunch I took up the high-speed riding the slab thing again until it was time for a break thanks to my manly lunch. The exit to Acala caught my attention as it looked to be sparsely used and was home to a variety of large plants, tall leafy things designed to conceal. Off I went and within 30 seconds of dismounting a pickup truck appeared. Squirm. 

This is Acala or at least the entrance to it, in a nutshell not exactly a center of commerce. Dusty you might even say. But it seems someone must live down there or otherwise why would a truck go down the road?

Being the patient sort that I am I was able to, uh, rest, and once rested continued on my way. The next exit of interest pointed to Fort Hancock, one of the towns on my  list so off I went in search of the fort. Nada, nope, rode through town and couldn't seem to find it. It's an old place and not looking like things are going well, at least for the business community. The school board evidently won a bit of recognition as it was posted as such on the school's reader board . 

Business seems to have slacked off a bit

This is pretty much the town's main drag

Quiet you might say

Plywood sales probably went well for awhile

Church doors seldom close though

Color is everything sometimes

Chile however seems to be a booming business so I popped into the Chile Store for an interview with whoever would be up for such nonsense. Still writing a book you see. Remember Cul de Sac from last year? Like that. Anyway I went in which must have set off their intrusion alarm and the Chile man appeared out of the back somewhere. We chatted it up interview style for awhile, me taking pics and him telling me all about the Chile biz, the 3rd-generation owners, how business was going, all that sort of stuff. 

Finally I asked if he'd mind if I took his picture for the blog to which he agreed but wanted to go get his hat first. God I was praying it would be a giant red Chile like the Cheese heads from WI wear to their football games but nooo, it was just his regular ball cap. 

Shoot, how disappointing. 

They make a gazillion kinds of flavorings. I bought the chicken flavor, probably will burn my guts out.

This is my guy, Mr Chile Man, cap and all. He was really nice.

That was the end of today's adventure, once I left Fort Hancock it was a straight on ride to my destination of Van Horn, Texas. I checked into the Super 8 where they gave me a great discount for being a Veteran. They also put me in the handicapped room, probably because I couldn't understand half of what the receptionist was asking. It was the "Are you a former member of the military?" question that was unfamiliar to my brain, I'm more accustomed to showing AAA or AARP ID, my military status has never come up. Maybe I'll use that more often in the future. Note to self: Why are there no knobs on the inside of the door to my room?

Ride happy, think Mexican.

LL

Aug 26 Day 06 - The Old Spanish Trail - Silver City, Nm

And now for today's weather report:
Scorching temps intermingled with lightning,  thunder, heavy rain, possible flash floods. Be alert out there. That's how it went most of the day today, with plenty of nice riding miles in between. 

But here's how it all began: Guilty breakfast at the hotel - eggs - sausage - yogurt - orange juice - room coffee. Umm 

Leaving Winslow I headed in an easterly fashion on highway 40 towards Holbrook. The first thing that caught my eye occurred in the vicinity of Joseph City, a huge plume of what looked like smoke rising hundreds of feet into the sky.

Nasty looking stuff going into the air we breath

Telephoto shot from the same spot

I stopped for a closer view of the source of all the smoke and one of the locals slowed his car and yelled "It's a power plant" at me. Judging from that I expect I wasn't the only one wondering what the source of pollution was.

Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, must be a duck. Pollution? Oh no, it's a coal-fired power plant, that's all.

Not too many miles further into the ride I came upon another of our natural wonders, the petrified forest. I couldn't resist and the nice lady in the ticket booth informed me the five buck fee was going up to ten bucks in October. Lucky me, I saved a fiver by showing up early.

Smallish museum but great dioramas of long dead critters

Outside I encounter the stickery-prickly plant. I don't touch.

This would look nice in a Hard Rock Cafe

This be the man

See them rocks? 

These two babes were really getting into taking selfies using one of those long selfey poles. I saw them taking one that was obviously a video and they had their backs to me. Bet they really love looking at me waving my arms and jumping around in the background when they get home and view the flick. Old guys, we're fun as hell.

Once I'd topped off my fossil-torture-tank I headed out to the parking lot only to find my fine British hand-crafted touring machine surrounded by cast iron loud & obnoxious fat boy bikes. The licence plates were all from Florida which is a long way from home for Harley riders.  

I say Reginald, aren't those overweight ponderous machines made here in the Colonies?

Upon leaving the park you pass through a gauntlet of tourist traps all hawking petrified wood souvenirs. You know, the kind you're not supposed to have? 

 There was one shop peddling crystals, some of which originated from petrified wood.

After leaving the enchanted forest I followed 180 south towards St Johns and eventually Alpine. On the way there were small towns or villages hardly big enough to be on a map but nice little places just the same. While riding through one of them I saw this really pretty herd of red bovines so I did the u-turn thing to go back for a pic.

 Not long after passing the bovine herd I noted the lightning strikes off in the distance and the ominous black clouds gathering over the general direction I was traveling. I decided it was time to stop and suit up, there was no way I would dodge this storm.

 I pulled into this little parking area thinking it was a local church or something and I needed somewhere I could change into my rain gear. Turned out it was nothing more than a glorified rest stop complete with facilities. Pretty snazzy.

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting rained on, sometimes pretty hard. At one point I entered an area posted with flash flood warnings. The water was coming down the road pretty fast and my open-faced helmet had begun to fog up to the point I couldn't see. For once I was glad I'd brought my Schuberth lid with me as it's got a Pin-lock visor shield that won't fog up no matter what. The rain was fierce while I changed into it but it was worth the effort just to see clearly. It continued to pour but I never encountered any flash floods. Got lucky on that one.

The rain came and went and after an hour without it I shucked the jacket as it was getting really hot. I kept the pants on and the jacket handy in case it started up again which it did but not as hard. 

More view points cropped up along the way and I stopped for several of them just to take in the scenery, My last one was at Alpine just before crossing over into New Mexico. Right after that I stopped at the really tiny village of Luna where I gassed up at a single-pump station. I was pleasantly surprised to learn I'd made 60 mpg on that tank of gas, the best so far. It was probably due to the slow pace I'd been riding during the rain storms and the twisty roads in the national parks. The Bonnie has been doing really well for mileage and I'm wondering how much effect the Parabellum windscreen setup is having on it? The factory claimed it would help but I didn't expect that much. 

Hey I can do selfies too.

Last shot of the day, time to hang it up

I arrived at Silver City, NM late afternoon and checked into the local Motel 6. I've stayed here before and it's OK, nothing to brag about but my needs are simple enough and their rates are more than reasonable. Dinner was fit for a hog, a Double Whopper and Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Yummy.

LL