Day 16 Hatch

9/23/19

Sometimes gratification needs to be delayed.

Today we awaken refreshed after a good night’s sleep.

I was a little cold in my blanket and sheet…time to break out the sleeping bag. Good news all around, no scorpion attacks.

We decide to ride 20 miles to the first town for breakfast. Few of us had enough calories yesterday and I figure I lost a stick and a half of butter in weight… just in one day. As we leave the dam at Caballo holding back the Rio Grande

the sun is just crossing the mountain peaks.

I recall pulling out that it was here two years ago that we were delayed…I had to put on my “ white coat” and sew up someone’s leg. We pass the spot where I worked from the seat of a van for an hour or so. Today no accidents… must have been the aura of scorpions last time.

Up ahead I begin to see green fields of chili,

corn , melons, cotton, and finally pecan groves.

All this lush farmland is due to irrigation from the Rio Grande, here a small river

created by release of water from the dam.

We are all getting very hungry as the twenty miles drags on but like a horse drawn to water once let out of the barn we speed up and traverse the distance in a little more than an hour. Hunger brings out the White Rabbit in me.

We pull into a cafe by the side  of the road in Hatch , park our bikes and rush inside for the menus. I get my usual but the others are more adventurous and order the Christmas Tree.

When their plates come out the meals are beautiful. A Christmas Tree is scrambled eggs mixed with chorizo and divided in two, one side with green chili and the other with red… on a bed of refried beans and rice. The meals are so beautiful no one wants to mess them up with utensils… so we take a picture and dive in.

Sometimes a meal is worth the wait.