Sunday, 13 May to Deming, New Mexico

Happy Mothers Day!!

Thanks for having us Southern Star RV Park, Van Horn, TX

By 9 am we are on the road and very soon we are into Mountain Time, yay - we have an extra hour today!

By the time we drive past Sierra Blanco, the last town before El Paso, we are noticing a definite Mexican  influence in the building style.

We stop at a Walmart in El Paso to buy another can of AC refrigerant, the other one didn’t work so well. Also we need another tank of diesel – $2.859/gallon here.

Hill Houses El Paso

Once through El Paso on the I10 we come across a detour, so we get a closer look at a suburban town in NM.  Not much different to any other.  The road need some work however, I swear all six wheels of our motorhome actually left the road after hitting a mean bump.  All our coat hangers were tossed off the rail in the wardrobe, our clothes now resting peacefully on the floor.

Just a small sample of the 700 miles of wall along the 2,000 mile border between the US and Mexico

The "X", just shy of 200 feet high, on the banks of the Rio Grande

The X or “La Equis” is actually in Mexico, on the south bank of the Rio Grande. The two towers intersecting in an “X” shape represents the merging of the indigenous Aztecs and the Spanish cultures. The red symbolises the blood spilled during the Juarez drug wars.

We cross the state line to New Mexico.

Land of Enchantment

Just inside NM alongside the I10 we see those confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)), where large herds live in feedlots awaiting their 3 x day trip to the milking barn.   I google it and find there are 30,000 cows, living this way! As you would guess they produce a lot of sewage, especially as the dairies are clustered together in such a small foot print and the sewage is contaminating the ground water.  As in NZ, it is the dairy industry's biggest environmental challenge here too.

On a greener note, on the other side of the I10 are Pecan Orchards.

We come to an US Border patrol inspection station and all traffic is herded into the drive-through lanes. There are two of these located alongside the Mexican border, we passed one about 30 miles back in Texas but it was on the eastbound lanes.

The stated purpose of these inspection stations is to deter illegal immigration and smuggling. After 9/11 they took on the additional role of terrorism deterrence.  It has been reported that “More than 705,000 total Border Patrol apprehensions occurred along the southwest border in 2008. The Border Patrol also encountered 530 aliens from special interest countries, those which may represent a potential terrorist threat to the United States. There were also over 3,500 drug seizures at these southwest border checkpoints combined in 2008".  Who knows how many they apprehend these days.  Happily we are waved on through, as are the three trucks in front of us.  We went in the truck lane, cars had a separate lane.  Glad we didn’t have to stop at the station back in Texas, there were probably 40 trucks lined up waiting to get through.

US Border Inspection Station, NM

Next excitement, we come across ‘Dust Storm Warnings’ for the next 30 miles, pretty much all the way to Deming.  The word signs suggest you pull over, turn off your engine and lights and keep your foot off the brake and wait it out.  We did see some dust swirls, one right beside the interstate and we had a couple of really good gusts but nothing really to worry about.  Eastern NM is known for its wind generation, makes us feel as home!

We drive on uneventfully to the little town of Deming where we were check into the Deming Roadrunner (which is the State Bird) RV Park.  We have full hook-up, 50 amp, free WIFI and a picnic table – but it is just a dusty gravel lot with no ambience at all and it is too hot, windy and dusty to sit outside.   I guess we are in the desert, so shouldn’t expect lush!

However Deming does have three wineries and is the largest wine bottler in New Mexico.  You can also buy hard liquor (read Vodka) at the supermarket here in NM and it’s cheap - can’t be all bad!