We had an interesting visitor when we were unhooking Kathy's car from her RV. Roadrunners are everywhere in this area and they are very friendly and curious little birds. This one kept coming right up to us. I offered him a pretzel which he refused. I later learned they are omnivorous and eat snakes, insects and seasonal fruit.
We went to look at the sights a couple of days. First we went to Silver City, NM and visted the Silver City Museum which is set in the H.B. Ailman House, a mansion with a soaring turret and graceful mansard roof, built in 1881. Like its name, Silver City was a boom town for silver mining at one time. The discovery of silver ore deposits sprang the town into a bustling city which also led to the town's violent crime rate.
The Big Ditch used to be Silver City's Main Street before it was washed away by floods in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The townspeople built a bridge over the Ditch and moved the businesses over a street. It's really nothing than a large creek but the residents promote it as a tourist attraction and have celebrations such as Big Ditch Day to celebrate it.
While I was on the bridge that ran across The Big Ditch, a man approached me wanting me to sign a petition to get rid of the meters in the town which he claimed were toxic. After listening to his spiel, I signed....who knows? This is what he had to say and it is reason for concern. "Smart Meters" are being installed on homes throughout the world. These radiation-emitting, surveillance devices are watching every move you make; while, at the same time, bathing you with cancer-causing radiation. Without regard to human health, power companies are looking to capture the entire population with this new, highly-toxic technology. Supposedly these meters can monitor your every move and then that information can be sold to third parties.
The next day, Kathy and I visited the Deming Museum which was a very interesting museum for such a small town. It was filled with lots of historical collections.
The Mimbres Indians once lived in this area between 1000 and 1150 along the Mimbres River in the rugged Gila Mountains. They were eventually absorbed by the Pueblo Indians and some may have migrated to Mexico. They were expert pottery makers and below is a sample..
I found this iron lung interesting in the medical part of the museum. It made me recall the polio outbreak in the 1950s. I had a friend who contracted it and had to spend part of her time in a contraption like this to help her breathe.
The museum also commemorated WWII and the Bataan Death March in the Philipines, led by the Japanese in 1942. Many prisoners of war did not survive this march as they were brutalized and demoralized along the way to weaken them. It was a 65 mile march to the prison camp.
We sometimes tend to forget what our veterans went through, not only during WWII, but all of the wars prior to and after that. God bless America!
