Las Cruces, NM. Bid farewell to Danny and Diana, and received a government escort out of town (not sure if it was a courtesy or making sure I got to the city limits and didn’t turn back). There was no way out of town, in the direction I wanted to go, that didn’t include some Interstate time. I trudged along I-10, stopping in Deming for a relief and drink at the McDonald’s. I met a retired cop who wanted to know the usuals, and I offered up the usual reply. He was taking his Harley to Mazatlan, Mexico for the winter. Good luck with that, I said and proceeded toward my exit. With relief, I turned off on route 146 toward Hachita, NM. I was the lone contestant on the road is right show, and the vast breadth of the valley’s made it that much more lonely. Although the mountain ranges appeared close-at-hand, they were in fact over 7,000 nautical miles, or at least 100 desert miles, ridge-to-ridge. I rode through some desolate house sites and clusters of buildings that claimed to be towns. I stopped in Rodeo to get something to drink, I saw the soda fountain and ordered a soda. The girl behind the counter asked what flavor, and I replied Diet Coke. She took a styrofoam cup off the stack and then retrieved a can from the frig, popped the lid off a can of Diet and poured my fountain drink. Sitting outside a Post Woman, in uniform, exited.
“You the Post Master General out here?”
“Oh no, I’m just a clerk,” Post woman answered. I wondered how many postman they could have out here where the population ventured toward something like 50. Come to find out she retired as a Tucson police officer and runs a donkey rescue with 47 donkeys in her care, when she’s not sorting mail. She wanted to get out of the city and doesn’t mind driving 48 miles (one way) to the closest grocery store in Douglas.
After I got back on the bike, heading toward Douglas myself, my pea-sized bladder was screaming to drain the Diet Coke I had just drank ten minutes ago—I love getting old. I spotted a historical marker up ahead so I could kill two birds with one piss break. I pulled over and peed on the site where Geronimo surrendered. How many historians can say that?
In Douglas I drove through the old downtown, searching for gas, but to no avail. I finally found some on the outskirts of town. I chose the less traveled byways to Tombstone, bypassing Bisbee of J.A. Jance fame. My god these valleys are deceivingly huge!
I made it to Tombstone, found a room in the Budget Hotel in the historic district where the advertised WiFi was a question, not an internet service. I moseyed on into town where every eccentric retiree who ever dreamed of being a cowboy lives out his/her dreams, complete with six-shooter and hat. I wondered in and out of the souvenir shops, found MY kind of souvenir shop—the tobacco and cigar shop—and found a bench to people watch as I enjoyed an end-of-the-ride cigar. The locals, who paraded about in varying degrees of period clothing, were on average about 65-70 years old. Being Arizona, I didn’t dare ask if all the six-shooters I saw on hips were toy replicas or not. While sitting on the bench, savoring the cigar and creating back-stories for the people in view, came four actors strutting toward me in the middle of the street. Their theatrics worked and I paid my ten bucks to “walk the ground of the famous gunfight.” I saw the reenactment of the Kurt Russell movie TOMBSTONE at the OK Coral, and then picked my cigar back up from the brick under a bush where I hid it for the performance.
The temperature dropped and the rain came in from those mountains off in the distance. I headed back to my room for the night of no internet and capability to make my nightly blog entry.
trafalgar adventures 