Land of Enchantment

We rolled across the New Mexico State Line shortly before noon on Wednesday. They had a nice welcoming sign that included the slogan Land of Enchantment . That’s saying a lot. Enchantment is a pretty heavy word. Many people may like something, but to be enchanted – that’s a pretty tall order. New Mexico is going to have to try hard with us.

Soon after the border there was a nice looking Visitors Center. We decided to stop there and let them start the enchantment process. As we were walking to the entrance, another Rver pops out of his unit and says hello. We note that we have very similar units, and before long, I was in his RV and we were comparing gadgets like little kids. Turned out that the couple were Curt and Donna. A very delightful couple that we had a lot in common with. Ever wonder what it would be like to meet your double? You would have a lot of catching-up to do and many things in common. That was the feeling I got with Curt. Since, of course, we were headed to the same location – Silver City, we decided to have happy hour later that day.

Silver City. Here’s the description in the travel brochure:

Silver City is a community built on strong foundations. Unlike other frontier towns, Silver City’s forefathers came determined to build a metropolis of civilization in a harsh and inhospitable frontier land. Founding fathers required their homes to be built of brick masonry because of the dangers of fires.

Now one would think of a town with handsome old buildings. But nooo, most of the town is cheap prefab or concrete block with some trailers thrown in. The best built structure is their Super Wal-Mart. On top of that, their main street is completely torn-up, causing permanent traffic jams. With two highways crossing in the middle of the town, it would be pretty hard to become lost. They overcame that problem by removing many street signs – including the names of the highways themselves. There are street signs most of the time for the side streets, but they are very small and hard to read.

Last night we stopped in to one of their better eateries - a KFC. When we walked in, a customer and cashier were having an argument, with another customer butting-in and exacerbating things saying, “You’re disrespecting her!” I thought we were going to have a hillbilly slapdown – for free. The order filler was stoned out of his mind, and floated around in the back randomly stuffing pieces of chicken into a bucket (our order). Ah ! Maybe this was the enchantment we were promised. It certainly reminded me of another favorite town in California – El Cajon .

I won’t even mention the hail, rain, thunder and lightning we had today. Someone up there doesn’t like this city! My pocket camera, Mr. Nikon, refused to open his lens to take pictures - being offended by these events, so this post is text only.

Next journal entry – things look up as we journey to the Gila Cliff Dwellings.