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Published: March 6th 2018
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We packed up at our fine little site on the Devils River and pointed west again, this time for New Mexico. We ran the short distance south to Rt 90, just outside of Del Rio, then turned west for Sanderson. We've traveled this stretch of highway before, and it's a fine drive. We crossed the Pecos River on the high bridge, and looked down on the water that we kayaked last year. It was remarkable how much lower the river was this year, almost a mud flat looking south toward it's meeting with the Rio Grand, I don't think that even a canoe of kayak could make it through. Water is a real and growing problem out here.
At Sanderson, we turned north on Texas 285 for the run to Fort Stockton, where we could rejoin I10. I was curious to travel that particular road, as it is the site (next month, in fact) of the annual Big Bend Open Road Race. In that event, they close the road to the public, and allow entrants the run the length of the road to Sanderson and back, as fast as they want -- sounds like good clean fun. It's not what
I would call a twisty road, but it does have lots of sweeping curves, it would be a blast in the right car.
After that, it was a long drone down the 10 to El Paso, where, to our chagrin, we found I 10 to be "Closed Ahead!" This required some creative re-routing by my ace navigator, but she got us though without putting a foot wrong. This was another long day's drive, I was probably (again!) over optimistic in my time estimates (the Google maps guy must not be hauling a trailer) and I was pretty tired at this point. We still had another 50 or so miles to go to Columbus NM, and the Poncho Villa State Park, so we pressed on. We were traveling on New Mexico Rt 9 now, a long, straight stretch of road that hugs the Mexican border. I drove this on my Porsche trip a few years ago was amazed by the Border Patrol presents here. That has not changed much, and almost all the traffic we saw along those miles was BP vehicles.
It was getting dark when we arrived at the park, and we drove around a bit, looking
for an unoccupied RV site to land in. Cathy had been calling the office here all day and had never gotten anyone. Finally we decided to take an open primitive (no power) site, right next to the oldest (and coolest!) motorhome we'd seen on the trip. It was a Shasta, I wished I could have talked to the owner, but we never saw anybody around it. The next morning (Sunday) quite a few campers left early, so we moved to a nice powered site.
Columbus NM is (sort of) famous as the last place in the United States to be attacked by a foreign military force. In 1916, Poncho Villa's army attacked the small US Army garrison stationed at Columbus. As a result, the US government sent General "Black Jack" Pershing and a large force on a "Punitive Expedition" to root out the devil and bring him to "justice". They came equipped with all the latest and greatest military toys, trucks, staff cars, artillery, 4 wheel drive armored cars, and even, for the first time in US history, airplanes. They had a few things on display, a field gun, a mobile kitchen, and (my favorite) a Jeffery armored car.
The Jeffery was the first successful 4 wheel drive commercial truck, and I had never had a chance to look at one before. Pretty sophisticated for it's time, it had offset drive axles for high ground clearance, and even 4 wheel steering! It must have been hot as hell in that oven-like box though, and with the solid rubber tires, I don't even want to think about what it was like to drive it off road.
With all this stuff, the US forces then invaded Mexican territory with the stated mission of capturing or killing Villa, which they were never able to accomplish. This was an important turning point in American history, when our nation learned the bitter lesson that superior numbers and technology cannot necessarily defeat a determined insurgent force. I'm so happy to report that we have never made that same mistake again, and again, and again.
For tomorrow, we plan to drive the 4 miles to the border, and make our own non-punitive expedition into our southern neighbor's territory.
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