Silver City

 

It was once an Apache campsite and silver ore was discovered at nearby Chloride Flat.  Silver City, New Mexico was founded in the summer of 1870. It was a town with a violent crime rate: Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch frequented the saloons in the late 1800's, and Billy the Kid was arrested there twice by Sheriff Whitehill. In 1878, the town hired its first town marshal, "Dangerous Dan" Tucker, who had been working as a deputy for Whitehill since 1875. We took the room at The Drifter because they advertised a bar, pool table, and pool.  After we checked in, we found out the bar was closed on Mondays, and the pool was closed, too.  The place was run down, pretty much deserted, except for us.  But there was a restaurant/bar across the street, so it would do.  We'd reached the furthest point of our ride and would be heading mostly east from now on.

We drank a few left-over beers in the room, with ice, because they were hot from being in the saddlebags, and went across the street to a bar and made friends.  There was a tiny woman there, named, appropriately, Tiny, who told us DO NOT GO TO THE BUFFALO BAR. It's crowded, she said, and there are too many fights. And some big dude across the bar chimed in, saying, "Don't go to The Buffalo!"  But that's just what I was looking for. I asked for directions, and we hopped on the bike rode over to The Buffalo.  It turned out to be a great place!  Fifty cent pool table, bikers, crazy people, and a cool bartender named Wendy.  Got a good beer buzz there, made friends, took pictures, and went back to the shithole hotel, a piece of history.  It looked like Billy the Kid pissed on the rug.  A shithole named The Drifter.  

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