Military Convoy & Octoberfest
In my last update, I posted photos from the ceremony and lunch the community put on for the MVPA Bankhead Highway Convoy that stopped in Rodeo New Mexico on October 12th. To commemorate the end of WWII, The Military Vehicle Preservation Association, in restored military vehicles from across the country traveled from Washington DC on their way to San Diego California along the Bankhead Highway route. The Rodeo Portal community and the Rodeo Tavern put on a great lunch for the Convoy participants and local community members. The locals lined the street waving flags and cheering as the convoy came through town on NM Hwy 80 with over 50 vehicles from Jeeps to ambulances to large cargo carriers. All privately owned and restored. We met folks from Maine to Washington state. It was a great event and showed the small town hospitality that we love here. Here's a bit of history of the convoy:
"The Military Vehicle Preservation Association traveled at a maximum speed of 40MPH and the 3,400-mile convoy took 29 days to cover as many of the Bankhead Highway's original roads as they could. When possible they traveled on the actual roads the U.S. Army took in 1920, mostly state and county roads. In the west they had to trailer some of the vehicles and get on the interstates as a last resort because in a few places reservoirs flooded the original route or bypasses erased the original route altogether.
Colonel John F. Franklin's original 50-vehicle 1920 Motor Transport Corps convoy traveled the route in 116 days. Along the way, Franklin's convoy encountered impassable sands, axle-swallowing gumbo, and flooding. They had to build or replace bridges and reroute where the highway merely ran over rutted old wagon tracks and unimproved dirt roads. Their practice was to go out of the towns they came across, build about a mile of good road, and then invite the townspeople to drive the new road, Franklin's group would then encourage the townspeople to put up money to connect the sections of road to their towns" It was and inspiring event.
- See more at:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2015/07/17/mvpa-convoy-to-trace-bankhead-highway-from-d-c-to-san-diego/#sthash.4XDbi0Vj.dpuf
This weekend in Portal the community came together once more to celebrate Octoberfest as a fund raiser for the Sew What Women's organization that gives Scholarships to local high school graduates and supports a nursing home in Douglas Arizona. It was a beautiful day and money was raised with a Silent Auction, a rummage sale, bake sale and a delicious lunch of Brats and Sides. There was a great turnout and we had a few outside vendors who enjoyed the day too. This is a great little community and this is HOME.