Saturday, March 7, 2009 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
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Grumpy, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, February 19, 2009
Sixth Annual Camp Furlong Day Celebrates Cross-Border History March 7 at Pancho Villa State Park
From the New Mexico State Parks Press Release [pdf]:
COLUMBUS, N.M. – Folklorico dancers, mariachi music and a parade led by 100 Mexican Cabalgata horseback riders highlight Pancho Villa State Park’s 6th Annual Camp Furlong Day, scheduled from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 7. The annual event promotes friendship and goodwill between both countries.
“Camp Furlong Day honors the strong ties between Mexico and New Mexico in this historic commemoration,” said State Park Director Dave Simon.
The multicultural festival commemorates the March 9, 1916 attack by troops of Mexican General Francisco “Pancho” Villa on the village of Columbus and adjacent U.S. military camp, and the United States' response with the Punitive Expedition into Mexico by General Pershing and his soldiers.
“Camp Furlong Day unites New Mexico residents, visitors and citizens of Mexico in commemorating this significant historic event,” said Victor Trujillo, Pancho Villa State Park manager.
Nearly 100 horseback riders from the Cabalgata Binacional Villista will join the celebration – the culmination of a 14- day ride from Guerrero, Chihuahua to Columbus, N.M. At Palomas, the Cabalgata will be joined by American horse riders.
Night camp
Site 29 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Pancho Villa State Park website
- Locate Pancho Villa State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
A Voyage and a Harbor
The native American was forced westward by the young escaping the limits of east coast villages that had been established only a generation or two earlier by parents escaping the limits of European villages. From then on, whether seeking a whale, rafting with Huck Finn, easy riding with Peter Fonda, or next week in Cancun, there has been a strong belief in America that happiness lies somewhere else. And yet as we find freedom we also rediscover loneliness. As geographer Yi-Fu Tuan says, we require both shelter and venture. We need freedom and support, silence and cacophony, the vast and distant but also the warm and near, a voyage and a harbor, the great adventure and the hobbit hole. Much of the iconography of our times gives little sense of this. Instead, the individual is treated as a self-sufficient, self-propelled vehicle moving across a background of other things, other places, and other people.