Janurary 2 and 3, 2008

Wednesday, January 2 was a travel day for us. It was hard to say goodbye to Bobby, Cathy, and the kids, but it was time for us to move on.
We left El Paso around 11 a.m. and made our way to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, New Mexico.

The weather is still chilly, but not as cold as it is at home! If you look closely, there is a bird on the frozen fountain in the first picture. It blends in with the tree behind the fountain.

As we got closer, he flew into a nearby tree.
After setting up camp, we toured the museum and grounds at Pancho Villa State Park. The museum is relatively new and has artifacts from Pancho Villa's invasion on March 9, 1916.

We are staying near the first military airbase, but there is no famcamp! Can you believe that!

There are many remnants of Camp Furlong at the state park, including the first ramp for changing oil in military vehicles.

Bob and I enjoyed walking up Coote's Hill to view the area and learning the names of some of the more than 30 cacti that grow in the area.

This is a picture of a blind pear growing near a century plant. The blind pear has no thorns, instead it has velvety smooth outgrowths where you would expect to find thorns. It has a purplish red color. The next three pictures are of different types of cholla cacti.

This is a barrel cactus at our campsite.

Wildlife is abundant in the campground. As in every other New Mexico state park where we have stayed, there are many quail, roadrunners, and rabbits. We finally got a picture of this roadrunner near our campsite.

Here is a rabbit that has a burrow in a cow tongue cactus.

This rabbit lives in the cacti at our campsite.

The campground is not far from the Mexican border.

On Thursday we went to Mexico. We enjoyed the trip across the border to visit Palomas, Mexico. We parked on the American side and walked to Palomas. We ate lunch at "The Pink Store" which is named for its color.

The chairbacks in the restaurant were shaped like prickly pear cacti. The entire place was very colorful.

The salsa on the table had a bit of a bite.We again toasted retirement and our travels. Lynn was right when she said margaritas south of the border are strong! The margaritas were only $2.50 and they contained more tequila than anything else.

Friday we will do some geocaching in the area, although there are only a few listed. We still have a travel bug we need to put in a cache so it can continue its travels.