Drive to Silver City, New Mexico

After waking up early, we drove away from the park at 6 in the morning, very early start. It was barely getting light, we both felt a little sad to leave this park, it might not be a big park, but it holds a special place in our hearts. Along the road toward El Paso we saw many dead animals along the road side; one of the most shocking things was to see a dead bobcat in the middle of the road. We have never been able to see one in the wild and it was a little heart wrenching to see one dead on the road. But we also saw dead deer, some rabbits and even a dead turkey vulture. We did not drive into El Paso like previous times, this time we continued to Las Crusas to get some grocery shopping done at one of the Wal*Marts. We also popped into Best Buy where Wahid bought a couple of the series he is collecting. After that stop we continued to Silver City, in New Mexico, we had heard that is was a funky little town, the gateway to Gila Cliff Dwellings, a good 45 miles away.

Lance Armstrong is nr. 4 ( in the middle of the photo, dressed in black, next to number 45)

When we arrived in town we saw that most of the centre of town was blocked off. As it turned out there was a criterium going on, and the rumour was that Lance Armstrong was going to be there as well. At first a bit annoyed because this would have a At first we were not too bothered to watch the race, but there was no escaping. First the women were cycling, the men pro group a little later. Wahid had left his camera in the motor home and went back to get it. While I was waiting for him to come back, I was chatting to this lady sitting next to me on the pavement. Her son was cycling with the men pro 1 group. He had been cycling in Europe for the last number of years in some of the major tournaments. Her son, Jonathan McCarthy, was now cycling for a team that was not going to go to Europe this year, but he was hoping to go back to Europe in 2010. When Wahid came back we went to another spot to shoot some more photos. The race in the end was won by a guy from New Zealand, Armstrong was not up front. I did manage to get a relatively good shot of Mr. Armstrong before the race had started. After the finish we went for a beer in Isaac’s, a bar off Broadway, it had a good vibe. Wahid was hungry so we ordered some nachos and spicy chicken wings. After the food we switched to drinking cocktails, in the meantime musicians had come in and we kept on ordering cocktails. We did not stay out that late because the next morning we wanted to get to the park early. On the way back to where the motor home was parked, Wahid wanted to start chatting to the police officer, but since we both had a little too much to drink I told him not to, did not want to take the risk ending up in the slammer to sober up.