Spent the day riding down the valley of the Rio Grande - which is now Rio Pequeno due to the extensive irrigation. Crops of red chilis, white cotton and pecans made it feel like Christmas. Pumpkins being harvested reminded us of impending Halloween.
We passed many chili processing plants; crates of chilis stacked high, chilis being sorted, cooked and dried. The road side was littered with red chilis. Chilis thrown off to the side shared the verge with crushed beer cans and discarded Gatorade bottles.
After a time the run down trailer home compounds and their yards filled with rusted out cars gave way to fancy Spanish houses as we neared our destination: Las Cruces. This is our last night in New Mexico. Tomorrow El Paso and Texas.
Rider Profile
Jim is a retired newspaper man. He spent 21 years as a foreign correspondent for the AP which took him to Moscow, London, Johannesburg and Nairobi among other places. He then he took a job as the national/foreign editor at the Dallas/Fort Worth Star Telegram where he worked for 22 years.
Jim is a wealth of knowledge on Texas towns and history so he has us actually looking forward to the 3 weeks/1000 miles it takes for us to cross that state.
He and his wife Mary Ellen love to travel, which is good because their three sons love to move around, currently living in New York, Denver and Taipei.
Jim is also keeping a blog of this trip. He has longer and better researched posts and better pictures.
http://jimsbikeblog.wordpress.com
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