Saturday, March 24, 2012

A Day Off in Columbus New Mexico March 24 2012





After yesterday’s century a day off was certainly welcome. However the town of
Columbus is hardly the town I would have picked to have a day off in. The town is approximately 600 people. There is a little museum which is the old railroad depot from the Dodge-Phelps line which ran up to Bisbee but that line was abandon in the early 1970’s. There is a tiny but very nice museum in the Pancho Villa state park. These museums detail the 1916 raid by Pancho Villa in to Columbia New Mexico. This raid sparked the positioning of US Army troops here and a 400 mile march by Pershing into Mexico. Pershing pushed into Mexico with cavalry armoured cars and troops searching for Pancho Villa but never found him. This set Pershing up to be the US commander in WWI. The US operation cost $130 million in 1916.

Ed took me for a little ride on his tandem recumbent bicycle. This was my first ride on such a contraption. It was a little intimidating. However it could be fun as you would always have someone else to ride with.

For lunch we were shuttled across to the Mexican town of Palermo. We went and had a very nice lunch in a place called the Pink Store. The food was excellent. It was kind of a unique experience. However there isn’t much there either. The fence/wall between Mexico and the US runs about 0.5 miles in either direction from the actual boarder crossing and then turns into barb wire fence. It is about 10 feet high. I assume that no one from Mexico has figured out how to get around the fence.

Tomorrows ride is 74 miles into El Paso, which put us into Texas

Terry

1 comment:

Ken C. said...

Terry, just catching up on your three weeks worth of blogs. Sounds like another adventure with cold, heat, misdirections and winds, both favourable and unfavourable. Thanks for the blog, enjoy the ride. I'll try to be more attentive.