Blatherings From The Editor

Old Is New Again

(December 2005) 

A weekend or two back I needed to ride over to Deming, New Mexico to get a picture or two of a belated Deming Gathering award presentation.  It was to be a simple ride over for lunch via back roads, then hop on the freeway for a quick return.  Quick and over roads that I’d traveled many times before.  Not boring roads, mind you, just familiar roads.

     Seems a new arrival to the Southwest, Bryan Seneviratne, had asked me earlier about riding over to Columbus, NM, on NM 9.  So, I emailed him and asked if he would like to join me on a quick day’s ride over to Deming and back.  As I suspected, Bryan agreed and we departed at 8 am for Deming via AZ 80 and NM 9.

     As we got out of Douglas and began to pick up speed in this less populated area of the eastern leg of AZ 80, I got to wondering what Bryan was thinking about the route and how much did he know about the history in this part of the US.  As we swooped past an older, now closed restaurant, I got to thinking about stopping at a couple of road side attractions or historical markers and playing tour guide.

     The first stop was the Geronimo Surrender Memorial in Apache, AZ, about 90 or so miles from home.  A nice covered roadside table makes this a great coffee stop (and photo op as you can see from the front cover).  As I began to tell Bryan about the history that surrounds us down in the US Desert Southwest, it was like it was all new again to me.  Most of us have played Cowboys and Indians but few have actually visited the amazing places where our famous Cowboys and Indians actually lived out their lives and created the history of the Old West.  The memorial is worth a stop and a few minutes reflection.

     East on NM 9 about 15 miles is the town of Animas, the largest town on NM 9 this side of Columbus.  The area’s High School is here, along with a general store and gas station on the east side of town.  You can only get 87 proof from the old, pay inside gas pumps.  I was told that the cotton gin in Animas was closing and the town would suffer greatly from the loss of business, maybe even turn into a ghost town as many towns have done on small, infrequently traveled, back roads.  Too, bad.

     A few miles later we stopped next to the historic marker in Hachita, about 45 miles east of the Arizona border.  There used to be a really neat café here called the Egg’s Nest.  An older couple that made figurines and carved eggs of all sorts ran the place.  They took pictures of the folks who stopped, especially motorcyclists and their bikes, and pinned them to the wall.  I was surprised how many faces on the wall I began to recognize over the years.  Now their gone, health problems, but bringing Bryan over and recounting the times Wanda and I have stopped here, brought back loads of good memories.

     From Hachita it is a straight shot to Columbus.  The road passes through what must be some pretty good farm land as the fields stretch into the distance in several places.  Onions and red peppers of some kind must grow well here.  You can find a bunch of samples beside a rather nasty turn about 8 miles from Columbus.  This sneaky little S turn can come up on you rather quickly.  It must catch a couple of produce trucks every now and then as evidenced by the produce litter on both sides of the road.  Be warned.

     I got the pictures I wanted in Deming and we departed around two in the afternoon via the freeway.  After gassing in Willcox we headed south to take Kansas Settlement Road to Hwy 191; through Tombstone via Davis Road and then Charleston Road into Sierra Vista.  About 450 miles of riding and countless old and new memories relived and lived.  Deryle Mehrten, old can be new again, sometimes.