ONE OF OUR NEW BEST FAVORITE SPOTS..

    First of all, let me correct my date on the invasion of Columbus by Pancho Villa..It was not March 7th as I stated, it was March 9th, 1916.  Note to self..get your history facts under control… 

This park is becoming a favorite of ours and we have only just begun. Last night’s campfire was one welcoming  reason…The next big reason is that we now have a “room with a view”…Pic on left is the view from our back window…Pic on right is from our dining table….

..From our bedroom, Dennis gets the sunrises again, and a beautiful cactus garden..and I get the Western view..sunsets and another garden of desert cactus. Speaking of sunsets…

I never get tired of the playful sun…It rises and sets in a wide spectrum of color..

We walked around the park this morning and took a few pictures of the remaining buildings left from Fort Furlong.  Left photo is the old fort headquarters, and on the right is the Judge Advocate building..They are both behind fences..to keep stupid people from doing graffiti..

 

There are lots of very neat, very sharp plants here. This one on the left, in particular, attacked me as I was trying to do an inside somersault from my ladder hanging a bird feeder.  I don’t intend to get tooo friendly with any of the cacti surrounding us here. I am a little more friendly to the one on the right….the one with little soft puffs of feathery stuff …more to my liking.

  We took a ride 3 miles South to the border crossing, and observed where we would park when we walk across(not today). We have been reassured by park personnel that it is perfectly safe to cross the border here and go to what they call the Pink Store…Apparently the Pink Store has been there a while, and you get handed a free Marguerita when you walk in…(I see a plan forming.) They have everything from souvenirs to food to liquor and anything in between, so we have decided to go find out what all of the hoopla is about with the Pink Store…and you will be the first to know when we do!Here is a link…The Pink Store…

Below is a photo of the Duty Free store…and on the right is the fence that separates Mexico from the US….not much, right?

We drove over to the little, no…sparse town of Columbus.  We need to get a map to know what is an older historic building here.  We did find this place, the Hoover House Hotel, one of the fancier places in 1916.

And on the right is what is left of the Columbus Bank…the old vault..that supposedly had bullet holes in the door…if only the door were still there..There was a gunfight in the street here between the hotel and the bank, where one of the first machine guns was used.

We went further down the street and found the “grocery”, (and I use the term loosely.) We also found that next to the grocery is a bar/restaurant.  We found this out my me, peering in looking through my hands and staring directly into the kitchen ..Hey, I didn’t know it was the kitchen!  Not being one to turn down the opportunity to check out a new restaurant, I tried the big wooden door..and it was locked….I was about to go back down the steps when I heard someone on the other side saying something sounding like “Come here, come here”… I heard the door being unlocked and a lovely older Mexican gentleman motioned me in..Meanwhile, Dennis was almost out to the truck..Sometimes I think I embarrass him…OH, REALLY?? At any rate I did discover they serve, of all things, pizza…and also tortillas, flautas, burritos…..and beer. I thanked him for letting me in, but told him we were not eating right at that moment, but we would be back, and he looked like I had just told him his cat died.

This afternoon we took a bike ride around the park…that has to be at least 2 miles when we walk it!! I wanted my picture taken with these 2 HUGE Blue Agave plants…they make Tequila from this plant…I need one in my garden at home…

 

Well, I have rambled on about this place to the proximity of boredom…Sorry, but it sure is fun here. The skies seem to go on forever. I guess I can’t venture out into the Chihuahuan Desert behind our park…it IS private property, and there is no way we wouldn’t be seen..Not one big cactus or tree in sight….SHOOT!  (Maybe that is not the word to use…) See you tomorrow!!