and time to breath before riding on without Camilla and New Mexico for the second time

After Antelope Wells we headed NE for Phoenix where Camilla was going to ship her bike back to Halifax and fly herself back to work and I was hoping to stay with friends who I met in Tombstone during my RTW trip.

We actually had some of the best riding since leaving Colorado.

At this location, though it does not seem possible, we both got daylight beneath our tyres :-))

My home for a week in Scottsdale.  A really nice chilled out time with my friends Mark and Cathy.  I was really well looked after and it was hard to leave.

Little things please little minds :-)

This road was stunning.  Very twisty turny and was parallel to one of the roads we had followed on the trail.  Once the rain had stopped it was great fun.

A bloody huge open cast copper mine at Morenci as I made my way through New Mexico

Once I had set up my tent in the State Park at Mule Creek I looked skywards and realised I was in for a lot of rain.  I checked my tent again and saw what appeared to be a hastily made but shallow drainage ditch around the area my tent was pitched.  I remember on my last trip helping Alex dig a drainage ditch as the torrential rain threatened to swamp hi tent as it made its way down the slope.  Had I inadvertently and despite careful checks pitched my tent in an area at risk of flooding?  Better not the the risk so in the pitch dark I relocated.

This garage was advertised for sale.  I would not think there is much call for stage coach garages.

Bit if Deja Vue creeping in since I was riding exactly the same route as I had done 2 weeks before.  Decided to ride a section that we had avoided on the previous occasion due to thunder storms.  It was now looking much better and this piece of 'dirt' was really good.

I came within spitting distance of Antelope Wells again and was able to take a photo of the divide sign that I had missed last time

Hachita is a town that used to rely on the nearby copper smelting plant.  When that closed Hachita died.  Even the church was boarded up.

The no 9 road ran parallel with the border and in places on a hundred metres or so from it.  As you would expect it was crawling with 'agents' from the Border Patrol.   

Columbus lies on the 9 and it was the site of the last hostile action by foreign troops in the Continental Unite

Apparently the Martians from 'The War of the Worlds' were also there.