Silver City, NM

(continued from previous post)

My truck was still in the same place where we had left it, only dustier from cars that had come and gone in the five days we left it off the trail head parking area. Fears of a flat tire or broken-in window were unfounded.

The only trouble we had was finding a radio station. I left the scanner on until it finally stopped on AM570, a right-wing (of course!) talk radio station out of Las Cruces, NM: KSNM. And it was (of course!) the Rush "Triple-Chin" Limball show talking about Obama and his (of course!) many flaws and how he stands no chance of reelection. I kept the station on hoping Limball would mention any current news, but instead he ranted about John Edwards, who was news 18 months ago when his affair with a campaign aide became open.

And then Limball started conjecturing about Al and Tipper Gore's divorce, the former vice presidential couple during the Bill Clinton years. So now they were divorcing? Huh. Well, not quite. His conjecture was that they were divorcing because (of course!) Al had had an affair and just wait for that to be made public. The Gores have been married for 40 years. The possibility that Al had had an affair was, to Limball, news enough for him to rant about. Rush Limball has no authority on talking about divorce; that man's soon getting married for the fourth time to a much younger woman who frighteningly resembles right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, Kathryn Rogers. Florida, watch out for tidal waves.

This is why I can't take political talk radio from either political persuasion. It's all bullshit. And in Limball's case it's all based on half-truths and exaggerations that someone with little intellect can fall for.

I had to play around with the dial to get another station that brought on the 11am news. The only other radio station I found, as we got closer to Silver City, was a station playing the "Doctor Schlessinger Show." Now there's a woman who should "shack up with" Rush: they make such a complementary, compassionate couple. Her PhD in physiology somehow allows her to doil out ultra-conservative advice to ignorant radio listeners incapable of analysing their own lives. She didn't even speak to her own mother when she was alive and had numerous affairs while still married to her first husband.

Nothing drastic happened in our absence from the technological world except Joran van der Sloot, the 18-year-old Dutch playboy suspected of killing Natalee Halloway in 2005 in Aruba is now a suspect in the death of a Peruvian woman over the weekend, who was found dead in a hotel room surveillance cameras show was entered by both the woman and Joran early that morning. Hmm. This time Joran's prosecuting lawyer dad is no longer alive to bribe officials out of jail. (He died a few years ago from a heart attack at 58 years old.) There's now an arrest warrant for Joran. Could he be in Chile?

More dramatic, perhaps, was the shooting spree by a British cabbie in Whitehaven, England who killed 12 (!) people and injured another 25 by shooting at their faces, but not much more was reported on that.

That was all the news that happened in the last five days? I was hungry for more news. Had North Korea declared war on South Korea? Had Iranian president Achmad Amadinijad declared himself an insane homosexual sex pervert? Had a massive counter-offensive been declared in Afghanistan against US forces? That was the kind of stuff I was thirsting for and not some possible affair by Al Gore or the probable crimes committed by a Dutch psychopath.

The only surprise is that the month-old oil spill from a British Petrol (BP) platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is STILL on-going. Oil is now heading toward the eastern shores of Florida. BP officials are still "working on this." What BP probably is hoping for is to get bailed out by our government so that they can declare another quarter of profits for the company. This oil spill is already heading toward the largest environmental disaster started by an oil company in the world. Thanks, BP. Now Americans are going to have to pay for this clean-up and we can barely pay for our daily needs without another few billion added to our $3 trillion deficit. Now I have to boycott BP with Exxon...

Enough ranting.

I had forgotten about the one-hour time change between Arizona and New Mexico. When we got back to the trail head my watch read 9:14am, so really it was 10:14am, and we still had a 90-minute drive to Silver City over the dry foothills and desert of central-western New Mexico.

I like this old mining town. It's the only decent town in SW New Mexico that offers any true culture. It's a great little town to stock up on food supplies before or after hitting the wilderness. Kevin wanted to go back to Jalisco's and that's what we did, after a quick dtour to a local grocery store for dog food, which Sadie ended up not eating.

The store was crowded with Super Seniors moving SuperSlow down the aisles, fighting over-loaded stocking dollies and people gathering to chat. I was glad to get out of that place.

We drove to Jalisco's and was greeted to a busy place again. Vanessa again was our server although she didn't seem to recognize us. "I'm here every day!" she told us. We ordered the same dish: red chicken burritos. I had an iced tea with my meal, Kevin ordered a Diet Pepsi. The cold drink tasted so good!

The town wasn't quite so crowded this time around, as the Blues Festival patrons from the previous weekend had all left. I recognized some of the same cars and their bumper stickers ("Obamanos!"; "Life takes its Toll: Please Have Exact Change!") as we walked up and down the main drag, Bullard Street. Even the same shaggy dog from Friday rested under the same canopy of a housewares store. Doggy water bowls were along the store fronts and people of all ages gathered here and there in all kinds of attire from golf course chic to hippie-dippie anti-soap, mingling around town in slow-motion like a movie film played below the recommended speed.

Kevin stopped in a used book store, I wandered a few side streets to look at the colorful architecture. People everywhere were in no hurry to go anywhere. It was a Wednesday and no deadlines were looming. Traffic was quiet.

We didn't stop in for coffee or beer anywhere. By now we were ready to head home and unpack. The sooner we left, the more comfortable our ride, as my Ford's air conditioner doesn't work and we have to drive with the windows down for ventilation.

The ironic thing is that once back at the truck, we spotted a sedan of local State Representative (R), Diane Hamilton, parked in the clearly yellow zone in front of Jalisco's. Was this really necessary? There were open spots in front of my truck. Even more embarrassing to me is that the front windshield had a Department of Defense sticker. The front license plate also sported the Marine Corps' Semper Fidelis logo. Not good for public relations, but great advertisement for Jalisco's. Oh, if only Rush Limball got ahold of his fellow Republicans! Parking in a yellow zone is certainly no major crime, but something pundits like to build into major topics. I don't know Hamilton. She may be a great representative for New Mexico, but this parking gaff is a bit embarrassing.