We had a rest day on Saturday. We stayed in the gym at the Columbus school. The staff shuttled us to the Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus. There the head ranger gave us a talk about Pancho Villa and his raid on Columbus just before World War 1.
Villa's dominance in northern Mexico was broken in 1915 through a series of defeats he suffered at Celaya and Agua Prieta at the hands of Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles. After Villa's famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, U.S. Army General John J. Pershing tried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when the United States entered intoWorld War I and Pershing was called back. Villa retired in 1920 and was given a large estate, which he turned into a "military colony" for his former soldiers. In 1923, he decided to reinvolve himself in Mexican politics and as a result was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón.
After we toured the museum at the state park, the staff again loaded us into vehicles and brought us down to the border. We waited for the shuttles to bring us all down and while we were standing around one woman took a general photo of the customs building. Several officers were outside and two of them came over in high dudgeon about her taking pictures of them. Well, I'm sure they value their privacy and I imagine those postings can be pretty dangerous, but seriously?? We looked like a group of middle-aged gringos in loud colored shirts, about as harmless as anyone could look! But we bowed and scraped and the person said she was just taking a general picture of the area. They didn't make her erase it, which if they were that concerned, I would think they would ask that.
Well we crossed the border, past Mexican guards with automatic weapons and went in to the Pink Store which is a restaurant, bar and warehouse shopping experience of brightly colored Talvera style dinnerware, planters, tile and sinks. And, I bought a sink! When I asked Bubba if there would be a way to transport it, he wanted to see it, but once he saw that it wasn't the KITCHEN sink but a mere bathroom sink, he said he could take it. So during the afternoon word seemed to spread with everyone asking about THE sink!
Then we sat down to lunch. Our first margarita was on Bubba and several people at our table didn't want theirs so others had more than one. Well I won't name names but a few folks became quite comic. We were serenaded by a roving trio.
We followed lunch with a trip to the Pancho Villa statue and all had a picture.
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