Today's driving day ends with surprise!

Saturday, Nov 5, 2005

With a goal of traveling through Deming, a one-stoplight small town on I-40, and ending at Columbus, a teeny-tiny village on the New Mexico/Mexico border, I got an early start. The drive took me through a major agricultural area and then plenty of open nothingness - a 100-mile drive.

In Deming, I restocked some supplies at Walmart, and then set out to find Internet access. No luck. But---a man at the visitors center said there was wireless Internet in Columbus!! What a surprise! The village received a grant to install wireless in the town's library. What good news to me because Pancho Villa State Park, where I'll be staying, is just about four blocks from the library. Finally, I could get on the Internet again.

Once I got to the village, I headed straight to the library only to find that a technician was working on the system so it wasn't available. But, the librarian said, the café across the street also has wireless!

After settling in at Pancho Villa, I put my laptop in my backpack and bicycled over to the café for lunch and computer time. I had over 200 email messages waiting for me! I made a little progress, but ran out of time to post to my blog.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking and visiting with other folks in the park. Cat did some near-by exploring. Ever since her encounter with "the monster" at Percha, she doesn't stray very far. It is a fairly large RV park in a desert setting, but only about a dozen RVs were here. I'm looking forward to a quiet night.

I'm reading an enjoyable and funny book by Bill Bryson - The Lost Continent; travels in small-town America. Born in Iowa, Bill sets out to find the "perfect small town." His humor is similar to Dave Barry's. Newsweek magazine said of the book: "The Lost Continent is paradoxically touching - a melancholy memoir in the form of snide travelogue." I'm about three-fourths of the way through the book, and he's still looking for that special town.

His book is interesting because I prefer to drive the state highways and county roads that take me through small towns. And since I don't try to drive many miles in a day, I have time to park and walk down "main" street. I have no problem finding someone interesting to talk to.