October 13th - Hillsboro to Las Cruces

Garmin says: 125.29 km 3930 cal 676 m elevation
Today is Columbus Day just the right day to ride to Apache country where Geronimo fought against the white settlers. This morning I went to the cafe on the other side of the street for morning coffee, When I came there I just saw a cyclist woman entering. Her bicycle was a Schwinn which was converted into a single speed and was packed with small panniers. I entered and she said, I saw your bike in Silver City and I met Justin yesterday on top of the hill. The world is so small, so now I know that her name is Gretta, she told me this much and she plays the fiddle in the Silver City string beans, found that in the internet after she told me that her band played yesterday at Gila Hot Springs. I had been told of this concert with 4 Bands already from Julia and David. And she is friends with the guy who won the Great Divide Race in 15 days.
I left Hillsboro pretty late as it was very cold in the morning, I even got a cold overnight. One of the guys in the cafe said it had 37 degree this morning on his thermometer. I wanted to go to Las Cruces and it would go mostly downhill except for some climbing in the beginning. The landscape was gorgeous and the streets were pretty empty. There are a lot of weird bugs on the streets and for days I see huge amounts of fat locusts. I think they might be in mating season as there are so many of them coupling, I mean copulating which doesn't look very exiting: a smaller one sits on top of a bigger one and they don't seem to move. I took a photo of a pair and while I was watching them, they did not move at all.
In Derry I had my first dog attack, not that I am not able to out speed them but it is still annoying and there is still the element of surprise. In the next town 4 miles down the road a second dog charged after me, now I am kind of traumatized, I didn't even think of dogs before and now I expect them everywhere. I had lunch in a redneck place which was plastered with Mc Cain/ Palin posters. Surprisingly it had Mexican owners and they did a collection for an employee who was for several weeks in a hospital - they don't seems to see a need for universal health care as you can just do a collection. Works like a charm!
Shortly past Hatch I met a Dutch cyclist who does the southern tier. He thinks there are no 15% inclines in America! Probably because there are just no mountains!
When I arrived finally in Las Cruces I was really tired and cranky. Poor Justin, he is just a born victim, he takes it all in. We stay at a Motel6 again and the kid behind the counter just left his home on Cortland St. in SF, because he could not effort to live there any longer, but he misses it so much.
We had dinner in a weird chain that Justin knew Uno, the food was very mediocre and the service sucked.
Aber das Schlimmste war eine Gruppe Deutscher (ca. 10 Maenner, keine Frau, die ueber der Kollege, der sie morgen trifft und aehnlichen eine eher sehr zaehe Unterhaltung hatten. Ich hab sie gefragt, ob sie bei der deutschen Luftwaffe, die hier doch irgendwo stationiert sei, seien. Sie haben zwar die Praesens der Luftwaffe mit einem Kopfnicken bestaetigt aber sonst nur ein nein hervorgepresst und ansonsten mich voellig ignoriert. So obskur benehmen sich auch nur hoechst merkwuerdige Deutsche, ich schaetze mal die kamen von Siemens oder sowas.