Hello Everyone! Well it was a fun romp across the country and I’ve made it to New Mexico. I’ve definitely been having a wonderful first week here in The Land of Enchantment. I’ve traveled from the oilfields of the southeast, through UFO country at Roswell and into the Old West at Lincoln. I paid my respects at the grave of Smokey the Bear, passed through some beautiful ski resort towns and then down into the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert where I saw some cool petroglyphs and incredible White Sands National Park. My week is ending here in sunny Las Cruces where I celebrated Mardi Gras last night, far from New Orleans, but close in my heart. It’s been an amazing and incredibly diverse start to my New Mexican adventure, much like the people of the state itself. I can honestly say that my first impression of New Mexican people in the short time I’ve been here is that they are very sweet. That’s probably not a good word, but it’s the one which constantly comes to mind. I’ve had quiet and pleasant conversations with roughnecks, bouncers, a bartender missing his front teeth and a guy with neck tattoos and every one of them just seemed like a teddy bear who would giggle if you tickled them (an impression I did not test out on any of them). I have, of course, met wonderful people all over the country, but there are places where you get a particularly good feeling and so far this part of New Mexico has given me that feeling. The places I’ve traveled have been great and the food has lived up to my memories of how good New Mexican cuisine can be. All in all, it’s been a fantastic week on the road and just what I needed to start off this leg of my journey.
When I left you last week I was headed towards Luckenbach in the Hill Country of Texas. On my way, I stopped into Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Site in Johnson City, a town named after one of Lyndon’s relatives, James Polk Johnson. The site was fascinating and included LBJ’s boyhood home in Johnson City and the Johnson Ranch and “Texas White House” a few miles down the road where he lived later in life and eventually retired. It’s also where he is buried in a very simple family cemetery. LBJ grew up in a humble home with no electricity, one of five children born to two local teachers. He went on to become a teacher himself and taught impoverished children of Mexican descent. LBJ entered politics in 1931 as a legislative secretary and went on to serve in both the House of Representatives and the Senate (where he rose to be the Majority Leader). In 1960, he ran against John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination for president, joining JFK’s ticket after his primary defeat. When LBJ became president after Kennedy’s assassination, he often returned to his Texas ranch, inviting friends, colleagues, and foreign dignitaries to join him there and experience some Texas hospitality. Their barbecues were both massive and legendary. While the Texas White House was closed during my visit, the grounds were open and I enjoyed learning more about Johnson, his early life and his political successes. I had always pictured Johnson as a Texas rancher, but never realized his humble upbringing and had always assumed he was just carrying on with Kennedy’s agenda instead of how much actually came from him. I’m glad I made the stop and after a few hours there, I was off to Luckenbach.
Luckenbach was settled in 1845 and steadily grew to a population of 492 people in 1904. By the 1960s, though, it was virtually a ghost town and the town was advertised for sale in the newspaper. Two men, Hondo Crouch and Guich Koock, bought the town for $30,000 and set about trying to revitalize its aging dance hall and country store. The town’s fate was sealed when Waylon Jennings recorded a song called Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love), a song he hadn’t written about a town he’d never been to. The song hit #1 on the charts and people have been coming to check out the town ever since. It hosts concerts, festivals and live music daily. The night I arrived the scheduled musician had called off due to the weather but luckily a group of musicians just happened to be there to celebrate a friend’s birthday and jumped at the opportunity to take the stage in such a storied venue. They were great and I enjoyed chatting with them after the show. I also enjoyed meeting the locals and talking about the history of the town and the people who have passed through over the years. It was a really fun night.
Freezing rain came overnight and caused both shows to cancel on Thursday so I decided to head on down the road. The rain had frozen in the trees, creating an absolutely mesmerizing landscape as I descended out of the Hill Country and into the flatlands of West Texas. When I got to a lower elevation, the frozen trees gave way to prickly pear cactus and I felt as though I had arrived in the West. I made my way through Mason, Menard and Eden before landing for the night in San Angelo. I hit the gym and then headed out for some delicious Tex-Mex food and a quick beer before calling it an early night.
I stopped and took a few photos in San Angelo in the morning and then made a beeline for New Mexico. I arrived in Hobbs, just across the border, around noon and made my first stop at the Western Heritage Museum and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame on the campus of New Mexico Junior College. They had an interesting exhibit on Steampunk and some of the people like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Mary Shelley who inspired it. The permanent exhibit had a lot of small-town bric-a-brac, but with a more western flare than many I’ve been to further east (as one would imagine). There were saddles and guns and assorted Native American memorabilia including a full-sized teepee. The last part of the museum was a Hall of Fame to local cowboys and rodeo stars which was nice to see. When I finished at the museum, I headed back downtown and bought a new pair of cowboy boots for the road ahead. My old ones simply weren’t wearable anymore, so it was time for some new ones and I found a nice pair of Tony Llamas for a good price at the boot outlet. After the sun went down, I headed out to the Zia Park Casino just north of town for the night. As I drove out there, it absolutely made my day to hear some high school basketball broadcast on the local radio station which is such a treat of rural America for me. When I got to the casino, I went in and played a few of the games and lost a few dollars, but only a few as I’m not a big gambler. I decided to try one game I hadn’t tried before and it was tough to leave it. I actually didn’t really like the way that it played, but it simply wouldn’t let me lose. My 50¢ bets quickly grew to a pot of $50, then $100 and then $150. I kept waiting for it to start to spiral downward again, but I kept winning for at least a half-hour and walked away up about $160, a big night for me. What a great welcome gift from New Mexico.
On Saturday morning I grabbed some breakfast at a little taqueria in town and then set off into the oil patch which stretches deep into New Mexico. The oil pumps were scattered all the way to the horizon as I made my way out of town and into the desert. I heard on the local radio station that Russia had, in fact, not invaded Ukraine and that it was all a plot by the Biden administration to get us into a war with Russia. The “newscaster” told people not to believe it if they couldn’t see it with their own eyes, and then started talking about the bible with no sense of irony. I decided I’d had enough news and switched over to some good country music instead. I drove through Artesia which has a clean and pleasant downtown area and some great statues and then headed up Highway 2 through the small, eastern New Mexico towns of Lake Arthur, Hagerman and Dexter. These were not well-to-do towns and in fact some of the poverty I saw was pretty devastating in the middle of all that oil country. I wondered, as I often do, where all of the money went. I did enjoy driving around these towns though, especially Dexter which is “Home of the Dexter Demons” (their school mascot). The Demons symbol was all over the town and it reminded me a little bit of the fictional town of Dillon in the show Friday Night Lights, one of my favorites. It really made me want to come back in the fall and catch a Demons game – I’ll bet the whole town turns out for them. Then I headed on to Bottomless Lakes State Park, which protects a grouping of sinkholes with beautiful little lakes tucked inside. I enjoyed wandering around and taking some photos and then did a quick and much needed oil change in the picnic area before heading on to Roswell. I’ve been to Roswell several times before on tour, bringing tour groups to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center which is an interesting place. I got to Roswell right before sunset and enjoyed taking a few photos around town before it got dark. I got some work done and then grabbed some tacos from a nice little food truck and headed out for Karaoke Night at Billy Ray’s. The people there were all so nice and the singers actually weren’t half bad. I wasn’t there long though as I was pretty tired and knew I had a long day ahead.
Sunday was definitely a long day, but a lot of the things I wanted to see were only open on the weekend so if I wanted to see them, that was the day. I spent some time in the morning taking a few more photos around Roswell and then headed out of town and up the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway to the tiny town of Lincoln. Originally settled by the Spanish in the midst of Apache territory, it had been called La Placita del Rio Bonito, but was renamed soon after President Lincoln’s assassination when it became the county seat of Lincoln County. I got a kick out of all the signs that pointed out that Lincoln County was slightly larger than Ireland. A county that big with one sheriff was a lawless place, and President Rutherford B. Hayes once called the main street through Lincoln “the most dangerous street in America”. Quarrels over beef contracts to supply nearby Fort Stanton led to the infamous Lincoln County War which was portrayed in one of my favorite movies, Young Guns, among others. The town is now partly run as a state historical site and there is a nice museum and a few other buildings which you can wander through. On the other end of town is the old Lincoln County Courthouse, where Billy the Kid was held by Pat Garrett while awaiting his hanging for the murder of Sheriff Brady. When Garrett was away attending to some out of town business, Billy overpowered the two deputies who were holding him and escaped, only to be shot in the dark a few months later at Fort Sumner. There was so much to read and learn in Lincoln and I really enjoyed checking out one of the wildest of the Wild West towns. From there I stopped briefly at Fort Stanton not far away and took a short walk around this old fort which was decommissioned many years ago. It was interesting and I would have liked to have stayed longer, but I really wanted to get up the road to Capitan to see the Smokey the Bear Historical Site before it closed. A cartoon Smokey was introduced by the Forest Service in 1944 in a campaign to help prevent forest fires. In the spring of 1950, a terrible wildfire swept through Lincoln National Forest and a tiny 2½ month old, 5 pound orphaned black bear with burnt paws was found clinging to a tree. The firefighters who found him originally called him “Hotfoot Teddy” but soon realized how perfect a name “Smokey” would be. After being treated in Albuquerque, Smokey was flown to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. where he lived out his days as the living symbol of the Smokey character. He even got his own zip code and received more mail than the president. When he died of natural causes at the age of 26, he was flown home to New Mexico and buried right there in Capitan. I loved learning more about his story in this museum and paying my respects to the much beloved bear. From there I dropped down into the lovely mountain town of Ruidoso where I had a bit of a wander before heading out to the beautiful Inn of the Mountain God Casino on the Mescalero Apache Reservation for the night.
On Monday I sat in the phenomenally beautiful common area of the Inn, looking out at the magnificent Sierra Blanco Peak in the Sacramento Mountains over a pleasant manmade lake, sipping my coffee and feeling very sophisticated. When I took off, I headed up winding and wonderful Route 244 over the mountains and down into the town of Cloudcroft. The road took me up over 9000’ of elevation and there was quite a bit of snow at that altitude. I wanted to stop for a bit in Cloudcroft, but ended up driving past the turnoff into town and down the mountain before I could turn around. It looked nice from what I saw of it though, and the day warmed up nicely as I dropped down into Alamogordo in the valley. From there, I turned north and drove about a half hour to the Three Rivers Petroglyphs site. This site protects over 20,000 rock carvings made by the Jornada Mogollon people over 600 years ago. I’ve seen a lot of petroglyphs in my life, but these were dense and particularly interesting to see in my opinion. I was there for hours, just wandering on either side of the trail and seeing what I could find. It was cloudy and I really enjoyed being out there and had a great afternoon. When I finally made it back to my van, I headed back towards town and stopped at the Casa de Suenos restaurant for a late lunch. It was nice to find some authentic New Mexican food and I enjoyed an amazing bowl of Green Chili Stew and some Chicken Abobada (a chicken breast marinated in red chili and spices). Both were great and when I finished I ran up the road to the Tulie Freeze for some soft-serve ice cream and some banter with the two ladies working there who called my van a “Good Time Van” which made me smile. They told me stories of coming of age in the ‘70s and all the fun they had in Good Time Vans back then. I took some photos of the lovely old church across the street and then headed south again back to Alamogordo. I was pondering heading out to White Sands National Park for the sunset, which I really wanted to do, but the clouds were heavy and it didn’t look like it was going to pan out. I ended up finding a great retro custard stand to photograph instead. I got a late night workout in and then called it a night there in one of the most beautifully situated Walmarts I’ve seen.
I got up yesterday before the sun and headed out to White Sands, arriving soon after they opened the gates at 7. There were still clouds blocking the sunrise, but the morning sky was magnificent. I headed all the way out to the end of the road in the park and then enjoyed the 5 mile Alkali Flats hike which took me deep into the heart of the gypsum dunes. The white sand was very brightly reflecting the sun and I was glad I had both sunscreen and sunglasses with me, especially when the day warmed up enough to take my hoodie off. I took a lot of phots and had a blast bounding down the dunes as I went and the hike took me about 3 hours to complete. I had some lunch, took a nap and then did a little bit of work in my van as I waited for the sun to peak and start down again towards the horizon. When it did, I went out and took some more photos and enjoyed a spectacular sunset over the dunes. When the sun was down, I cruised on to Las Cruces and headed out to celebrate Mardi Gras at the Little Toad Creek Brewery on Main Street. I was thrilled that they were having a Mardi Gras celebration with two bands and a fire show. I don’t think many of the people there knew much about Mardi Gras, but some people were dressed up and it was great to be able to celebrate this most joyous of holidays with others. I definitely had a good time, but was pretty tired from a long day so headed out to bed about 10:30pm.
It’s sure been a busy week out here on the road, but a really good one as well. I’m happy to be slowing down here in New Mexico and am excited about the weeks ahead. This coming week, I plan on exploring some of the ghost towns of the southwest part of the state, heading up through Silver City and then off into the Gila Wilderness area for a while before heading on to Albuquerque, where I may be at this time next week. The weather is supposed to hold steady with warm days and cool (but not cold) nights, which is exactly what I was hoping for while planning this leg of my journey. Shadow Catcher is doing well and everything is just good right now. I’ve come to understand that in this life there are ups and downs and there always will be so it’s important to savor the good days when you’re in them. This has been a week of very good days. Thank you all for reading this blog and for all of your support and I can’t wait to see you back here next week to tell you all about what I’ve gotten into. Have a good week out there and be sure you have some fun.
-Mike
Old Fort Stanton
