There's lots of critter activity in the Chiricahuas, Portal, Rodeo and surrounding areas in August. The birds are beginning to migrate and the arachnids are searching for mates. Caterpillars are eating their way across the yards and along the roadways. Wild grapes are ripe for the picking. They are incredibly small, but tasty none the less. There's a lot of snake activity, though we haven't seen a rattler in our yard yet, just a small garter snake and lots of alligator lizards. One in particular had an encounter with a bird or other predator that got all of it's tail. His movement now is not quite as graceful as a fully tailed lizard, but he seems to be doing just fine hunting among the wisteria vine outside our kitchen window.
We went with our friends Stevie and Greg to Palomos Mexico on Friday. Bud & I had never been there. It's a nice drive across Highway 9 in New Mexico as far as Columbus, then just 3 miles south to the border crossing. In Palomos, we picked up a couple of bottles of antibiotics & a couple bottles of Kahlua, then had lunch at the famous Pink Store. What a neat place and the food was excellent! They sell handmade Mexican tiles, so when I re-tile the rest of my kitchen counters, I'll get the tiles there instead of Tucson.
We stopped in Hachita which is pretty much a ghost town and marveled at the beautiful stone church that is still standing but in dire need of restoration. The old school house next door was probably once the rectory for the church. New Hachita replaced the old mining town of old Hachita after the El Paso and Southwestern railroad was built in the early 1900s to ship ore to the Douglas smelter in Arizona. When mining shut down, the railway shut down and the small towns along the route have gone the way of the earlier mining towns of the bootheel and southeast Arizona.
In Columbus New Mexico we passed the Pancho Villa State Park, which interprets the history of the invasion the United States at Columbus New Mexico by Pancho Villa and his soldiers in 1916. This attack led to General "Black Jack" Pershing pursuing Villa with 10,000 soldiers 400 miles into Mexico for 11 months, but they failed to capture Villa. According to history, it was the first time an airplane was used during combat by our military. That little known invasion is the last time that foreign forces invaded the Continental United States.
Another interesting side trip in Columbus is to The Perfect Man Shrine. I kid you not, The Perfect Man, Avatar Meher Baba, is honored in the tiny town of Columbus New Mexico and though it is no longer being maintained, there were still pamphlets about the enlightened one who is honored by this replica of his tomb in India.
New Mexico Highway 9 goes all the way to El Paso and for those who like to avoid interstates, it's a great alternative route to travel.
We went with our friends Stevie and Greg to Palomos Mexico on Friday. Bud & I had never been there. It's a nice drive across Highway 9 in New Mexico as far as Columbus, then just 3 miles south to the border crossing. In Palomos, we picked up a couple of bottles of antibiotics & a couple bottles of Kahlua, then had lunch at the famous Pink Store. What a neat place and the food was excellent! They sell handmade Mexican tiles, so when I re-tile the rest of my kitchen counters, I'll get the tiles there instead of Tucson.
We stopped in Hachita which is pretty much a ghost town and marveled at the beautiful stone church that is still standing but in dire need of restoration. The old school house next door was probably once the rectory for the church. New Hachita replaced the old mining town of old Hachita after the El Paso and Southwestern railroad was built in the early 1900s to ship ore to the Douglas smelter in Arizona. When mining shut down, the railway shut down and the small towns along the route have gone the way of the earlier mining towns of the bootheel and southeast Arizona.
In Columbus New Mexico we passed the Pancho Villa State Park, which interprets the history of the invasion the United States at Columbus New Mexico by Pancho Villa and his soldiers in 1916. This attack led to General "Black Jack" Pershing pursuing Villa with 10,000 soldiers 400 miles into Mexico for 11 months, but they failed to capture Villa. According to history, it was the first time an airplane was used during combat by our military. That little known invasion is the last time that foreign forces invaded the Continental United States.
Another interesting side trip in Columbus is to The Perfect Man Shrine. I kid you not, The Perfect Man, Avatar Meher Baba, is honored in the tiny town of Columbus New Mexico and though it is no longer being maintained, there were still pamphlets about the enlightened one who is honored by this replica of his tomb in India.
New Mexico Highway 9 goes all the way to El Paso and for those who like to avoid interstates, it's a great alternative route to travel.
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