We held our daughter and her children tightly for as long as we could in the parking lot of the busy restaurant that Suni chose for brunch. We whispered in their ears thoughts that we hoped they would keep until we meet again in the Fall. I shook Dane’s hand and told him again how proud I was of him with a solid hug for good measure. We bid our compadres and new friends at Cedar Breaks goodbye for now after 6 months of camp hosting. Lately we had fallen into hosting little impromptu parties at our camp site with campfire blazing, food and wine aplenty, and laughs galore. Of course, we held one last get together before our departure. Our neighbor, Gabi, was able to secure a camp host job at our old stomping grounds at Steamboat Springs State Park and she was leaving within a couple of days, too. The Park was turning over its camp hosts and several new folks were coming on board for the Summer season. I made sure that our boss would hold open a spot for us come November and he gave us two thumbs up.
Over at the Roots Nightclub on the Square in old Georgetown I performed one last time on the usual Wednesday open-mic night and having become friends there with the local musicians and waiters/waitresses I put in a good set. All in all, if you have to leave your loved ones, new friends, and job, this So Long was a pretty good model. As we hoped to return to see each and every face again in the Fall, we thought a small prayer to ourselves for the Good Lord to keep everyone safe and happy until next we meet.
So sad to say, however, one of our little family would not be traveling to Colorado with us. Dash, our happy little four legged boy with the eager smile passed away on the Saturday before Easter. Over the past several years of our little family Vision Quest, Dash had enjoyed his “retirement” as much as any of us. Oh, he had his trying moments for certain, though. There was the time he had the brush-up with the porcupine at Steamboat Lake State Park, his poor face bristling with quills. Some mornings his aging heart ran rampant with the off-beats of his constant heart murmur and he could barely get up. Two years ago he began to have fainting spells due to the same condition. But, that was staved off by medicine and Diane’s home-cooked and lovingly prepared dog food. Never has anyone expended more time, thought, and devotion in preparing dog food from scratch...and it worked. I’m here to tell you that Diane gave Dash a full two years of life with her recipes. Yet, despite the oft time dire physical challenges, Dash overcame and had barrels of fun until the very end.
The last week of Dash’s life he could barely walk. He uncharacteristically began to have accidents in the motor home. His legs quivered and buckled as I placed him outside for his walks. Dash, the fastest dog ever to come out of Kirksville, MO, could now barely stand up. It tore our hearts up to watch him. Each day I would hold him close on my lap and whisper to him how much I loved him. Even then, in his pain and suffering, he would give me a lick on the side of the face in return. I had grown to really, really love that boy...that’s how I always thought of him, even when he turned 14. My little boy…Dashy Boy.
Dash died in my arms as I held him. He had just returned from outside where he had taken care of his morning constitutional. The look in his eyes told me to pick him up and carry him back inside the motor home. I cradled him in my arms and held him like a baby. For a few precious last moments he looked me in the eyes deeply. He was telling me that he loved me. I'm certain of that. Then, he turned his head slightly and let out a faint yelp...and he was gone. His big heart had finally given out. I cried so hard. Even now tears run down my cheeks as I try to type this. Oh, how we all, in our little family, miss Dashy Boy. Heidi periodically now gets the blues. You can see it in her. She misses her old running mate and though she watched him pass on I wonder if she understands what happened to him or where he is. We give her extra attention and love these days but still, some uncharacteristic melancholia overtakes her at odd times as she stares, seemingly longingly, out the broad windshield of the motor home, apparently watching and waiting for her friend.
I went out that morning into the deep woods behind our camp site. I found a beautiful spot beneath some Live Oaks and chose it as Dash’s final resting place. I dug as deeply as the landscape would allow before I hit limestone bedrock, perhaps three feet deep. There, Diane wrapped Dash in an American flag beach towel and bound it with string. We laid him ever so gently in his little grave and after covering him with soil we placed beautiful flat limestones over him a good foot high with all the artistic flair we could muster. When the grand kids came over the last time before we left we all painted rocks with little messages for our dear friend on them. Jack and Ella were as saddened as we were. They grew up with old Dash and your first dog is always very special to you. Mine read, “Run Dash Run”. Ella’s poignantly said, “Dash, our Beloved Dog”. Jack painted a very fine “RIP” that sits atop the stones. Diane placed several of her hand made clay rattles within the pockets between the stones. It is now a fitting resting place and memorial to a little dog who ran as fast as the wind, spoke with his sweet, broad smile, and had a loving heart as big as a mountain.
We worry about Phil, our neighbor and friend back at Cedar Breaks. Phil is the Park volunteer maintenance person and he’s excellent at his job. If you need any sort of tool or any kind of mechanical and electrical advice, Phil’s your guy. Need a tractor for a big job? Phil’s got three...take your pick and he’ll be right over. Need someone to drive a skid-steer and grapple tree limbs? Better call Phil. How about a chain saw? Need an air compressor? Let’s see, who might have components to fix an electric pedestal at one of the camp sites? Yep...Phil can do it.
Phil has just lately had a stroke and is in the Intensive Care Unit in Georgetown Hospital. Phil and I spent a lot of time this past winter talking, working and barbecuing together. During the cleanup operations after the big ice storm Phil and Diane and I would go out in Phil’s Kobota side by side towing his long trailer. We’d cut damaged trees and limbs down to size, pitch them into the trailer, and haul them to the burn site. We did a lot of hard work together. A lot of times when we would have impromptu get-togethers at our camp site Phil would smoke up some meats for the occasion. Man, we had a lot of laughs and good food together.
When we first arrived at Cedar Breaks last winter Phil was recovering from having a stint placed inside him due to clogged arteries. Off and on his foot would swell up and bother him so badly he couldn’t walk. He’d call me come over and walk Ruger, his dog, when that would happen. Phil has really been battling health issues lately as they seem to compound upon themselves and this stroke has us very concerned.
Phil called me the other day and we talked for something like an hour on the phone. Of course, this was before he had his stroke. We had a great time just talking about nothing and everything. I know I’ve commented on this before but it bears saying again...meeting new people and all kinds of new friends is the best reward for us in this gypsy life, the 50 Amp Vision Quest. We pray and hope Phil gets back to normal really soon. Such quality men as Phil are very rare indeed in this world.
Though this entry is coming across as dark and dreary and sad already, I’d be very remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of a musician of great prominence back in old St Louis. Tom Hall was the best acoustic blues guitar player St Louis ever produced. Everyone in the music scene and those who support live music in St Louis all know, love, and respect Tom. His heart was huge and he wore it on his sleeve as he went through life in the old Soulard neighborhood on the near south side of town. The Island as the residents of that old French neighborhood call it. Tom performed mostly solo but he played in some of the best bands in town over the years as well. Tom and his National steel guitar, fingers gracing across the strings in syncopated rhythm and harmony and his rich and smokey baritone voice singing out entertained and inspired thousands of St Louisans for decades. Every musician in town respected the heck out of Tom Hall.
Tom had his ups and downs. His life was never easy. He started out life as an orphan but overcame that lonely start in life and seemed to use his challenges to fortify his music. When he played it was as if his life was on display in his music. Just a few years ago as Tom was walking home from a gig in Soulard he was attacked and beaten by a gang of young toughs out looking for trouble and left for near dead on the cold midnight pavement. He recovered from that as he had his other setbacks, both physical and sometimes emotional, and was performing again in his old stomping grounds around Soulard. He died in a fire in his apartment. The firemen said when they arrived he was in his bed fully engulfed in flames. He was dead at the scene. It is such a horrible thing to consider that it is really difficult to think about. Tragedy seemed to follow Tom around like a lurking shadow in an alley, but his warmth, openness, and amazing talent always shone as a star on the horizon.
I cannot say that Tom and I were friends. We were friendly acquaintances and our paths crossed numerous times on a stage here and there around town. I respected and always thought warmly of Tom, looked up to his art and admired both his skills as a musician and performer as well as his open personality. His amazing talent and his soulful heart made him a beloved man in the city of St Louis. He will not be forgotten. His story and his music will always rise to the top in the history of the city and in the hearts of his friends and fans. God bless you, Tom...rest easy, for your blues have ended.
So, it might seem that we have been mired in gloom what with the start of this chapter being focused on passings. Truly, that is all part of life. There’s no real escaping it. No one gets a pass on heartache. But, one must find their pleasure and happiness where they are able, and we, by the grace of God, have so much joy given us every single day. T’would be sinful to consider even asking for a better life than Diane and I enjoy.
Our grandkids, Ella and Jack, were handed over to our care while Dane and Suni traveled to Colorado for a ski vacation that Suni’s employer gave all their employees as a business respite. Each day I’d trundle them off to school and return to pick them up in the afternoon. We’d typically hang out in the playground at the school for a half hour or so before walking the half mile or so home. On a Sunday afternoon we all went to the movies to see the latest Mario Brothers movie which afterwards Jack enthusiastically proclaimed to be,” The greatest movie of all time, forever.” Of course, Ivan, the Rhodesian Ridgeback behemoth dog, keeps me entertained during visits for hours, or, perhaps it’s the other way around. Woe Betide the intruder who attempts to do harm to anyone in Suni’s family. Ivan would leap to the rescue with all the ferocity of a mad lion. Truth be told, Ivan is a big ol’ teddy bear...if he likes you. The family came out to tent camp on our site out in the woods, too. That was a wonderful weekend. Each and every time we get to be with our family, be it Suni’s or Eli’s, we feel we have been infused with a double shot of joy and gratitude.
Off to Colorado
The first of May arrived and we pitched items in our retinue that we no longer felt we needed. So much the better to lose any and all weight you can when you live in a motor home. Old, threadbare shirts and pants, shoes that had served their time, just about any old thing we had been holding on to that was not essential to us was donated or thrown out…not that we have many things to begin with these days. I had just had all the badly worn tires replaced on our Jeep but found that the shop put the wrong size tires on. So, we had to stop at the tire shop, Discount Tires, to have the correct size put on just as we were leaving Georgetown. I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and have the tire company check the air pressure in the motor home tires, a task you should always do before setting out for long drives and travel. Man, a blowout in a motor home on the highway could be catastrophic. You’d most likely flip it. Well, lo and behold, we found that our front tires were badly cupped, meaning there were scooped out areas on the outer edges of the tires from uneven wear. Should I get them replaced before we set out? I decided not to. I thought we could get to Colorado and have them replaced when it came time to leave Colorado in the Fall, put off the cash layout for a bit. I must admit, this decision was due primarily to the fact that we had just spent a ton of money getting Tank the Jeep tuned up and set with new tires...like several thousand dollars. Of course, this was the wrong decision. Penny wise and pound foolish.
We left the Austin area immediately after getting right sized tires for the Jeep. The long pull across Texas horizontally went fine. I didn’t notice any shimmy or vibration in the front tires of Nell, the motor home. After 5 hours or so of driving we decided to stop and spend the night at Caverns of Sonoma, west of Junction, Texas. We had stopped here once before as its kind of the only place out there in west Texas to stop for the night, plus, the cavern is hands down one of the most ornately decorated caves we’ve yet seen. The price is very reasonable both for camping and for the cave tour. It’s a rather lonely place out there. While we were there we were one of two campers spending the night. The landscape is hilly and dry and the trees that are there are sparse. Scrub is the order of the day over the hillsides. It seemed to me that the area is a transition zone with the Cedar covered Hill Country to the east, the Commancheria...the Llano Estacado...to the north, and the Chihuahuan desert to the west. It was already beginning to heat up as the temperature that day rose to 90 and it was the 2nd of May.
The cave entrance itself is behind a long and low ranch style building that is reminiscent of a lot of commercial cave entrances. It immediately reminded me of Meramec Caverns in Stanton, Mo. Here at Caverns of Sonoma the kids could “mine” for gems in an artificial stream. Every manner of geegaw and hooliwack was on sale. There was a large bin where you could thrust your hand in a pile of colored and polished rocks and pay $5.00 for all your hand could hold. On one of the walls they featured smart-ass sayings on decals you could plaster on your bumper...or wherever. Every kind of silk-screened tee shirt was for sale as well. They must have bought out the warehouse of Mood Rings because they had thousands for sale. Of course, we tried some on. My “mood” was excited. Hmmm...maybe there’s something to this mood ring business. They also featured some exquisite gems and geodes and crystals as well. Treasures and Trash, all under one roof. We were told we had to wait an hour to take a tour of the cave and since we were the only folks there in the building we figured they were waiting to see if any stragglers might show up for the last tour of the day.
Well, let me tell ya, the wait was more than worth it. First of all we were the only folks on the tour. Being that it was just us, the tour guy gave us the royal treatment. He took us down passages that the more busy tours don’t go on for lack of time and due to the prospect of unruly folks touching the delicate features of the cave. He also had ample time to delve into the history of the cave and filled our imaginations with all sorts of anecdotes and facts about the cave and its features. Turns out, this cave was first “discovered” in the 1940’s when a rancher’s dog chased a critter into a hole in the side of a hill. The rancher had to crawl down into the hole to fetch his hunting dog back out and what to his wondering eyes did appear but a shaft that led downward into the nether regions of the earth. His curiosity ran wild. Now, for the first 1/8 of a mile of the cave it is dry. You’ll find no stalactites nor stalagmites, just bare rock walls. But, again and again he came back to the hole to try to go further into the realm. On one of his trips to the deepness he emerged into a room full of shine, gleam, and glimmer. The beam of his flashlight refracted and magnified back to him as if he were in a room of crystal chandeliers. He had reached the wet portion of the cave. For whatever happenstance of geologic settling of the rocky strata the cave has a clear dividing line between wet and dry portions, between barren, rocky walls and crystalline encrusted hallways and rooms where drip by drip, century by century, eon by eon, fabulous formations are built that surpass anything of beauty man can construct.
One of the most fascinating features of Caverns of Sonoma are the super abundance of helictites, a distorted form of stalactite that resemble twigs. Helictites defy gravity as they grow this way and that, jutting one direction for a few centimeters and then off in another direction. You might think you are staring at a pile of sticks somehow stuck onto the ceiling of the cave as they grow tangled and disheveled with no regard for the force of gravity. We were told that they grow this way because a speck of dust may land on the tip of the stalactite and cause the water driplets carrying the minerals to be deposited in a new direction. Each successive driplet then travels the new avenue until one day another speck of dust causes yet another detour for the constructive driplets. And so it goes as the centuries pass and generations and nations of man far above the cave pass into dusty history.
We were off the next morning early having decided during dinner that it would be wise to replace our two front tires on Nell, the motor home as soon as possible. Truth be told we never should have left the Austin area without replacing them. I was reminded yet again...Always make repairs as soon as possible to your RV...don’t put it off. We’re usually pretty good about that. I suppose that the sticker shock of our recent Jeep repairs caused us to initially think about trying to get to Colorado on the badly cupped tires.
Leaving Sonoma I thought for sure that the next city, Fort Stockton, would be a good place to get truck tires. After all, it is a crossroads out in the middle of West Texas. It’s semi tractor trailer heaven. Wrong! No one had our size of tire out there. We had to sit and wait for three days until the correct tires could be shipped in from Dallas. Of course, we needed to know WHY our tires were wearing this way. Was it alignment? Was it wheel bearings? Turns out after some deep inspection by the shop we chose that our shocks were shot. Exploded would be more appropriate to say. I thought back to those god-awful roads in Michigan and the east coast where the pot holes resemble the craters of the moon. I bet that is where we wrecked the shocks. Nonetheless, we had to get them replaced. Fortunately, the shocks were more easily found than the tires.
Also fortunately, we found an RV Park on the western outskirts of town that was very nice, and, moderately priced to boot. Since we were staying for several days camping at the local Wal Mart was not a consideration. This RV Park even had a small pool and it was just barely warm enough to take afternoon dips. The grounds sat high on a plateau overlooking the plain below fanning out to the west. Highway I-10 stretched out before us over that broad plain as a flat ribbon straight and true until it faded into obscurity some 10 miles or so into the dusty distance. Here and there a ruin sat forlornly out in the desert left to rust and weather, its usefulness long since passed. An old oil well, a forgotten truck that had stopped running and was left where it died, a one room shack whose roof had collapsed, these are the skeletons of the desert around Fort Stockton. There once was a beautiful spring here called, Commanche Spring. Pictures of it with dozens of swimmers perched on its banks can be found throughout town. It’s gone now. I was told that an oilman bought up the property and sucked it dry to quench the thirst of his newly planted fruit orchard. Really? A fruit orchard in the middle of the Permian Basin...where the Llano Estacado meets the Chihuahuan Desert? I hope his orchard bears some fruit because Commanche Springs no longer bears the fruit of its its life-giving water.
This is a forsaken town and there is no reason to be here other than to take oil from the Permian deep. There is an oil boom going on now out there but you wouldn’t know it from the trappings of the workers. The town is dusty, shabby, run down, and bereft of any kind of joy for living. It’s a tough town and there is no softness around any of its edges, no cultural institutions, little if any social life or apparent social interactions beyond work and service jobs for the truckers and occasional tourists just passing through on their way to somewhere else. Bits of flotsam and shards of plastic film from grocery bags wave furiously in the stiff, ever-present wind from the barb wire fences that have snagged them. In another setting they might be confused for pretty Buddhist prayer flags. Not here. This is where the mantra, “Drill, baby drill” was born and raised. This is the embodiment, the past, present, and future of our oil culture. I imagined Fort Stockton as the penultimate symbol for our nation should we, as a nation, fail to transition to renewable energy. Depressing? I should say so. I put down this crystal ball view of the future I found myself staring at all around me and longed to leave town.
Leave we finally did with new front tires and shocks installed. Heading northwest directly towards Carlsbad, New Mexico we passed miles and miles of oil depots gathered like so many desert outposts. Typically in this part of the country you see RV Parks, which might be a stretch in terms of their definition. These are worker’s camps where men and women live in RV’s while they work in the fields. Some are owned while others are rented. Water is trucked in since no matter how deeply you drill for water (why drill for water when you can drill for oil?) there is either no water, or, the water you do find is spoiled by fracking and other minerals too prevalent to be healthy. There is no doubt that an oil boom is going on in the Permian Basin. The two lane highway from Fort Stockton to Carlsbad is crowded with the extraction and transport of the black gold.
We eventually made our way through the outposts of Carlsbad and later Roswell, New Mexico. This, being our second time through the city of alien spacecraft fame, we didn’t stop. However, glancing out the windshield as we motored through town I can assure you that the marketing of aliens is alive and well. Never has a little town done a better job marketing itself than Roswell has on this singular event.
Our goal was to make our way to Lincoln, New Mexico, high up in the Sacramento Mountains where our dear friends, Dusty and Cindy were living and working for the Forest Service on a horse camp. We hadn’t seen them since we left Tonto Basin National Monument several years ago. Our anticipation was very high and the prospect of hanging out with our friends had us eager to keep traveling. We planned on exploring the area with them for at least 5 days or so.
Leaving Roswell to the east we drove up and up into the Sacramento Mountains towards their campground just outside of the little village of Lincoln. The roads were good and a relatively easy pull for our motor home. Finally, we were there! It had been a long somewhat stressful drive since leaving Georgetown, Texas. The relief and joy of being in this beautiful spot with our friends was a just and much appreciated reward. Cindy, however, was not there. Her mother had taken a turn for the worse having suffered a fall and a broken hip back in South Carolina. Cindy would be back in several days but right now she was tending to her ailing mother. We hoped and prayed that everything would go well for her. We hated to see Cindy going through this.
The Sacramento Mountains were better than advertised. The air was dry and fresh and the cooling effects of the night lasted well into each day. Even on days when it reached the 80’s the shade of a nearby tree or building would offer at least a ten degree difference. Of course, the sky in New Mexico is priceless. A deeper blue you’ll never see in America. When the brilliantly white Cumulus clouds gather in the afternoons, the contrast with the sky is remarkable. I could stare into it for hours. But, there was much to see and do and staring into the clouded sky for hours on end would have to wait.
The horse camp that Dusty and Cindy manage, Rob Jagger, is but a stone’s throw from the old western town of Lincoln. Equidistant southwest is Fort Lincoln, an Old West fort that was once overseen by Kit Carson at one time. The Buffalo Soldiers of the US Cavalry once were stationed there also. Both of these vestiges from another century are excellently preserved, perhaps two of the best examples of the Old West that are still around. Rob Jagger horse camp lay on a cleared, gently-sloped hillside with a beautiful view of the Capitan Mountains. At evening the Sun’s setting rays glance off the peaks and jagged sides of the mountains painting the scene in an amber light that is ever so inspirational. Sitting outside and taking in the quieting evening, you could easily be confused as to what century in which you are living. This is Mescalero Apache country and their spirit runs fleetingly through these mountains and valleys. It is unmistakable.
One fine morning Dusty carried me around the back country to show me a few out of the way places that few get to see. Just down the hill from Rob Jaggers the Rio Bonito rushes headlong towards Lincoln. Not much more than a creek that a boy could jump across with a running start it runs quickly and it runs clear, not more than a few feet deep. Still, this is the life source for the area. Elk and deer quietly take their sips mornings and evenings in the stillness. Coyotes and mountain lions refresh in the shade of over-arching Cottonwoods from its cool banks. There also lies a horse corral constructed of local cedar trees that is over 100 years old. Chances are that it was built during Billy the Kid’s rambling days. Just over the Rio Bonito and up on the opposing hillside there lies cave with one of the most extensively mapped systems in the country. Mile after mile of tunnels and great rooms lie just beneath the surface here. This cave is closed to the public and is fenced off with a great chain link fence that looks as if it should be a border wall. You are not welcome to explore this cave and the intimidating enclosure that encircles it makes that point clearly. While we were there “official” cave explorers were camped in the area while charting and conducting work in the system. Little was known of their work and purpose here but they had been encamped for quite some time.
Diane and I took one entire day to explore both Lincoln, the city and Lincoln, the fort. The fort was established to protect settlers and travelers from Apaches, the Mescaleros. Settling of local disputes between gangs and ranches was needed as well. This was a hostile place back in the day. Abiding the law was not a given. The fort was used until near present days for various purposes. Once this area had been tamed so to speak it continued to be used. During the 1930’s it became a tuberculosis sanitarium, clean, fresh mountain air being the principle antidote it offered. The fort is preserved excellently and you can tour the fort on our own with brochure in hand to guide you. A very nice Catholic chapel is also preserved here that apparently continues to offer an occasional service, though a quiet respite of spiritual renewal is its principal use these days. The preservationists have made it easy to imagine yourself in the company of Buffalo Soldiers and Kit Carson by outfitting the various rooms and buildings with authentic relics from those bygone days. In my mind’s eye I could easily see the parade grounds dusty with the activity of so many soldiers returning from a scouting mission on horseback, a captain in charge shouting orders echoed by a staff sargeant. The same Rio Bonito runs behind this fort and gathers in several near still pools where it can be gathered by the bucket full and ferried back to the fort or, on a hot summer day, provide a swimming hole for travel-weary soldier.
As the Rio Bonito continues downhill from the fort and past Rob Jaggers campground it flattens out somewhat in the valley below and provides the sustenance needed for the establishment of a town, in this case Lincoln, New Mexico. Lincoln is at peace now, a very small village. The main street of town, these days called New Mexico Highway 380, is said to be the best preserved Old West town in America. There is a good quarter mile of buildings fronting the two lane road and the town courthouse lies dead center, just as it has for the past 140 plus years. Billy the Kid, aka Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, and the Regulators are the reason this town is preserved the way it is. The town and its sordid past is not a caricature of itself as so many Old West towns have become. This town is the real deal and abject money-grubbing tourism is not its aim. History, accurate and true, is the prevailing tone of Lincoln these days and the goal of its preservationists and townsfolk.
The “Lincoln County War” was the catapult for the fame of Billy the Kid. To put it in capsule form, rival gangs of large ranch owners, pitted against each other for the control over the land and the cattle grazing rights were the crux of the issue that caused the War. William Bonney was a member of the Regulators, a particularly notorious group of ne’er-do-wells who tried to establish order in the county by putting rival gangs under their own thumb of justice and local law. Of course, many books and movies have been made concerning Bill the Kid and the Regulators, but few, if any movies accurately portray what really happened here. I’ve found books on the matter to be a better source. Just looking at the faces of these men who made up the Regulators make it clear that you did not mess around with these guys. Any number of shoot-outs and confrontations occurred around the county and in the town of Lincoln but the most memorable was the escape of Billy from the Courthouse and jail. Walking through the courthouse you sense that it seems almost untouched since those violent days. Billy’s escape that dreadful day is captured almost moment by moment through interactive signage. In short, the events went his way…
Billy had been captured by Sheriff Pat Garret and was in custody in the courthouse awaiting transfer to be hanged for killings and other offenses around the county and for his participation in the general violence around the county. For some reason Pat Garret left Lincoln, ostensibly on some business, but I have my doubts about that. (I wonder, did Garret intentionally leave to give Billy a shot at escape?) This move left Billy in the care of two deputies. One afternoon while Garret was away one of the deputies was across the street at a local watering hole enjoying a liquid lunch. Billy requested to go to the outhouse to relieve himself so the remaining deputy, for some reason, let Billy go to the outhouse without restraints, though he stood close by with a rifle. It’s reported that the two had been playing cards upstairs beforehand so perhaps the guard felt relaxed with the Kid. On the way back up the stairs to the jail Billy turned quickly and knocked the deputy back down the stairs while simultaneously taking his rifle from him. Billy pulled off several shots and killed the deputy. In fact, there are still bullet holes in the stairwell wall from the incident. Hearing the shots, the other deputy ran back from across the street to to the courthouse. As he neared the back entrance Billy shot from the window above and killed him on the spot. The stairwell gunfight, the window from which Billy shot the deputy, the exact spot where the deputy fell dead in the yard below, the blood stains from the wounded and dying deputy in the stairwell are all marked and lettered interactively in numerical order so that you can follow the sequence of bloody events step by step, moment by moment.
It was reported that Billy, having done away with his captors, casually hung around town for a bit before heading to the hinterlands to hide out. His full pride in being a gunfighter and outlaw were fully on display in those hours to the rest of the townsfolk. He didn’t hurry himself. He feared not.
Billy found refuge in Fort Sumner, northeast of Lincoln and a good distance from Lincoln County. With Pat Garret on his trail again and a price upon his head, Billy sent letters to the governor offering his side of the events of the Lincoln County War and his escape. Those letters in Billy’s own hand and signature are on display in the courthouse. It’s amazing to read. The governor ignored Billy’s pleas and put aside his excuses and rationale for his murders. Pat Garret, tired and angry over the deaths of his deputies easily found him there and killed him. Yet more vengeance had been served in the Lincoln County War. The history has been retold and enhanced for over 100 years and probably will be for the next 100 years. In Lincoln, New Mexico, as we strode down the main street amongst the old buildings and houses the air was fresh with a slight cooling breeze that made the leaves in the ancient Cottonwood trees along Rio Bonito quiver. These trees can bear witness to events from another time and place and occasionally they will whisper their secrets to you. They are secrets more felt than told. We breathed them in as the past became present once more beneath their leafy limbs, shaded from the sparkling sunlight in this storied little village with the larger than life history.
Close at hand is the city of Ruidoso bustling beneath Sierra Blanca peak towering at 12,000 feet. Horse racing has brought fame to this town but unfortunately while we were there the season had not yet begun. Diane and I love horse racing and we’ll always take it in when we can. Boutiques and restaurants aplenty have set up shop in Ruidoso, catering to the crowds from West Texas who barge their way up into these mountains during Summer trying to escape the infernal blasting heat. We didn’t spend much time here, mainly using the town to resupply food and a couple of excursions to eat out while passing through on our way to other sites. We did stop in at an unassuming little shop, however, that was tucked almost out of sight back away from the street under some White Pines and Cottonwoods. Romero's Sombreros was the little treasure we stumbled upon. The sign for the little shop simply said, “Hats”.
Mr Romero, of course, holds court most days in his shop and if you find him there you are in for an educational treat in hat wear. Mr Romero is an affable man who has never met a stranger. He will greet you and treat you as company with a big wide smile and welcoming words. This man not only sells the most amazing array of high quality hats but he outfits many movies with authentic and period correct hats. He can tell you the history of western hats, identify the various styles for you and how they came to be the shape, texture, and style that they are...their functionality and their style. Mr Romero will fit you with THE Hat that fits your personal style as well. While we perused the aisles we broke out into broad smiles, some as wide as the brims on the soft palms he had in stock. He gave us the history of many of the beaver hats he had, some new, most collector’s items from days of yore. These authentic used beaver hats had romance attached to them, their stories unique and full of humanity, life lived full and unabashed. There was no possibility that we would leave that shop without new chapeaus, it was simply a matter of what Mr Romero judged to be most fitting for our personal stride.
Would it be a silky, a high hat, a ten gallon, a Tom Mix, a garrison hat, a sou’wester, a topper, a bowler ( I thought hard about this one )? Perchance a Stetson in the Gus tradition? How about a fedora? Feel up to a full sombrero? Maybe a skimmer would do. Should we go with a worker’s hat or a ranch boss’s? There was a limit on our hat budget and rather than go a full week’s wages on a broken in Beaver hat worn by a desert dignitary or a Montana mountain cowboy we chose palm leaf specials for our new lids. I did eyeball a well-worn Beaver that was owned and autographed by Michael Martin Murphy, that illustrious singer of cowboy songs. I imagined to myself how many new songs I would be inspired to write under the auspices of that historical headpiece. Maybe he wrote, “Wildfire”, his biggest hit, while wearing that very Stetson! Once, the band, Guojons, that I was in along with Bob Breidenbach, Brad Koberman, and mystery man, Mike Bruce played a show with Michael Martin Murphy back in old St Louis. At that time we were doing mostly old cowboy songs like the band, Riders in the Sky, who still play on the Opry stage. In fact, one of that band’s members showed up at the show that night...but that’s another story.
Back on planet Earth, we forked over some good coin, not the fortune needed for the best hats in the place, but not cheap nonetheless. Diane’s palm leaf Gus finely accentuates the soft curves of her smiling countenance. Mine is a modified white palm Rancher, less stiff than normal with a lower crown than your typical Rancher. It seems to suit me well. Both hats will shade us well while working out in the sun with their broad brims spread outward. Both stylish and functional, that’s how Mr Romero outfitted us with hats. We both walked out of the store feeling like a million bucks.
When in New Mexico near Ruidoso, take the time to visit Romero’s Sombreros. Make sure Mr Romero is in that day. During racing season he spends a goodly amount of time down at the track with the rich Texas oil guys talking hats with them. It’s a brisk trade when they cash in on a winner. Then, linger a while. Try on some hats. Hear some stories. Treat yourself to a totally different experience.
Over on the western side of the mountains lies the village of Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Nestled in the pines at 8700’ altitude tiny Cloudcroft has only 688 folks living in it. The village was founded by the owners of the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad. Trees were cut and hauled down the mountain to towns and cities below, Alamagordo, El Paso, and such. The train tracks leading down the mountain were spectacular and though the need for timber has long left the area one elegant and fantastical train trestle has been left intact. It spans a deep gorge just on the outskirts of town and the thought of riding a rickety railroad train over it, black smoke pouring from its smokestack as it struggles mightily up the steep mountain side swaying side to side is enough to excite anyone. The trestle is now part and parcel of a small park. It stands resolute against the elements, suspended in time for now, a living memorial to another time and place and the villagers who cast their fate with the railroad to carve out a living here more than 100 years ago.
Cloudcroft is now a tourist destination, a place for outdoors life, for campers and mountain seekers, and hikers. Five national forest campgrounds surround the little burgh. Each one a splendid place to throw up a tent or park an RV. In fact, partly due to Dusty And Cindy being camp hosts over across the mountain range and the fact that the campgrounds appeared to be so beautiful on line as we searched them out we tried in vain to get our own camp host jobs here for the Summer. I never could find the right person to speak with though and so we took the gig in Colorado. As luck would have it, while we were in the vicinity a camp host position came open here.
Turnover of camp hosts in very, very low here. Apparently once you’re here you don’t want to give it up and I can easily see why that is. But, one did come open and just as we literally pulled into town. The supervisor of the camp hosts found our application from among here reservoir of applicants and called out to us, albeit somewhat late for this season. So, we thought, what the heck...we toured all the campgrounds with the supervisor and she gave us the lowdown on the job and the locations. She gave us several hours of her very valuable time shuffling us around in her car. In the end, though, we just could not go back on our commitment to the town of Lyons, Colorado. A deal is a deal and we had made one. Maybe next year, maybe sometime in the future we can settle in here for the Summer. It is a splendid, magnificent area. It remains in my mind and I recall our visit here often.
We trundled back down the range and headed back east the 30 or 40 miles to Lincoln and our camp at Jaggers campground with our buddies. Back east we drove, leisurely, down the two-lane, twisty, turny road through the steep valleys and open meadows ripe with winter runoff, through the Mescalero Apache reservation and the big casino they built to fleece the white folks of their excess cash, and through Ruidoso. It’s a 4000’ slide down from Cloudcroft to Lincoln. More than once our ears popped adjusting to the altitude loss. Along the way small herds of Elk moved slowly among the high grasses on the edges of the trees, safely ensconced in the evening shadows and shade. As we glided through one particularly delightful valley we glanced over to our right at the swift creek that was filling a meadow with small intermittent ponds. A lone coyote stood knee deep in one of the ponds, its head cocked upwards as if to howl to its mate to come join in the cool, still water. Our interjection into its world caused a hesitation to the call and he stood motionless watching us pass by with the wary eyes of an animal who understands that close encounters with humans can be deadly. He looked right through me. His bold stance and stare are frozen forever in my mind, a virtual photograph for daydreams to come.
Back at Jaggers Campground we found Dusty just then settling down after a day of pretty hard work putting the place back in shape after Winter’s harsh treatment. The Sun was asleep at the top of the hill to the west, lingering there, inviting us to enjoy its colorful exit. We settled in at Dusty’s compound (Dusty and Cindy have constructed a well thought out yard, fenced in to create some privacy among the other campers, with raised flower beds, a small corral for their horse, and a spot for hanging out to enjoy moments together watching elk and deer cross the fields off to the southeast). I’ll say it yet once again...the greatest joy of The 50 Amp Vision Quest has been making new friends who share our love of this planet and the outdoors and each other’s company.
The next morning Dusty and I went around the campground and did some weed whacking to clear off areas of the stubborn, bushy, wild weed growth. It seems to me to be a never ending chore for Dusty here and I was more than happy to lend a hand. Afterwards Diane and I lit out for an afternoon at the Valley of Fires Recreation area outside Corrizozo just a few miles north and still within Lincoln County. About 5,000 years ago Little Black Peak erupted and the lava flow traveled 44 miles into the Tularosa Basin, filling the valley with molten rock. The dried and cooled lava is amazing and brings to mind the lava flows on the Big Island of Hawaii. This flow is 4 to 6 miles wide, 160 feet thick and covers 125 square miles. Think about that for a moment!
When you drive up to it and start to approach the flow it appears as a black and barren river of rock frozen in time and as it starkly stands out against the surrounding mountains, now dressed in the lightest shade of green with Spring’s new growth. However, once you descend into the flow and hike along the path that the Forest Service has built adjacent to the campground you find all manner of flowers, cactus, and bushes typical of the Chihuahuan desert over in Arizona. It’s beautiful, really, to see all this life springing out of the black, rolled and craggy lava. And, the life here doesn’t end with plants and flora. An amazing amount of animals live within its recesses. It would seem that the base of the food chain is small rodents who flourish in the holes and tunnels of the lava. Their numbers bring predators. Owls, hawks, and Golden Eagles seek them out. Mule Deer, Barberry Sheep, and all kinds of lizards and of course, snakes live within the black rock, too. Diane and I took our time strolling along the path through the flow. We snapped dozens of photos and had a great time in this strange environment that geologically speaking is so young.
Before we left our dear friends we all jumped in Tank, our Jeep, and headed over to the White Sands National Park, far below Cloudcroft and down in the basin on the western edge of Sacramento Mountains just outside Alamogordo. There at the monument the effect of the landscape is the polar opposite of Valley of the Fires. Brilliant whiteness invades your vision and stretches out in all directions for miles. Here, the finest crystals of gypsum sand have been wind-blown into dunes and wondrously white sandscapes. At 275 square miles, this is the world’s largest gypsum dunefield...again, the world’s largest.
As in Valley of the Fires, some plants and animals have managed to survive in this absolute white world. We saw a lizard with a white body that made it indistinguishable from the gypsum with an aqua blue tail. It was an amazing creature. A few bright purple flowers emerged here and there where the scant water that falls from the sky gathers in seasonal pools. But, on this trip, we didn’t see a lot of living things. My overall impression was one of whiteness. Blinding, searing, whiteness that hurt your eyes unless you were wearing sunglasses. The sky was high and blue, the Sun blazed, and the whiteness overwhelmed your vision. A western wind was building and as it did it picked up the crystal gypsum in its unquenchable thirst to build yet more dunes and reshape those already there standing at the ready. Nothing remains the same here for very long, except unending and enduring white
The contrast of this National Park of Gypsum to the surrounding places we visited during our week made me think about this Land of Enchantment as they have named it… the moniker for New Mexico. I considered how, in this vicinity, you could have jet black lava punctuated by desert flora and fauna, pure white gypsum sand dunes for hundreds of square miles, deeply forested mountains and riverine valleys, all within 40 or so miles of each other. Truly, there is no other place like this on Earth.
All too quickly as is often said it came time for us to head north to our summer destination in Lyons, Colorado. We had so much fun and so many heartfelt good times with our friends, Dusty and Cindy. Diane and I talked at length about finding a camp host position in this area next Summer. Those campgrounds in Cloudcroft loom large in our minds and imagination. We both picture ourselves working there and being in the “neighborhood” of our pals at Jagger campground. We were offered a position on the spot for this Summer, but we could not go back on our commitment to Lyons. But, we do have the relationship with the Supervisor there now. Perhaps next year...who knows...Quien sabe?
We were moving quickly now with just a few days to get north. We have good friends around the Albuquerque area we’d love to see, but having spent so much time stuck in Fort Stockton with tire issues our time had been cut short. We stopped for just a day on this go ‘round and we met up with my high school buddy, Tim and Laurie O’Rourke. Tim and Laurie live up in Bernalillo in the mountains where Puebloans and Apaches and Navajo peoples have hunted and hung out for centuries. When Coronado lumbered through this place and camped down below the mountain on the Rio Grande way back in 1541 I imagine some of the natives may have taken refuge up here. The place is spirit inhabited for sure. I’ve no doubt the residual presence of those ancient peoples still hangs loosely in the atmosphere up there.
We met up with Tim and Laurie down below the mountain in Bernalillo at a McDonalds, about as spiritually removed from Coronado as one could get. But, soon we were whisked back centuries in time to a place whose history collided with Coronado's’ culture shattering march through America. Jemez Pueblo remains a place in time and space, at once altered, and yet unchanged in many ways for many centuries. The ancestry is here, the canyon is here, the river is here. Jemez remains.
Tim led us through some of the most gorgeous scenery in New Mexico on our shared day together. The Jemez river, flush with spring snow melt and recent rains, frothily bolted through and over the canyon rocks carving its path deeper, centimeter by centimeter, as it has for oh, so long now. We paused at various points along its course and admired it as Tim recounted numerous camping and swimming trips he and Laurie had made along its banks. We took time and stopped at the small outpost upriver where the Giggling Hot Springs emerge along its banks. It’s a commercial enterprise now but so tastefully done that it inevitably lured Diane and I into its hot baths for a couple of hours. We hoped we could jump back and forth from the hot springs into the cold river but while we were there it was forbidden, probably due to the high, rushing water of the Jemez river. Nonetheless, we were relaxed, subdued really, after our sojourn into the hot springs. This...is on our list of places to return to one day for sure for sure.
We picnicked at the little outpost and took in the afternoon’s ambiance of incredibly blue skies punctuated by cells of thunder and lightening to the northeast. Occasional solo drops of rain as large as tablespoons fell indiscriminately but never threatening the day. They made a sound as if a thrown rock landed on the tin roofs of a few of the buildings. Beams of the afternoon Sun, fractured by deep clouds pierced the landscape and created dark shadows offset by pools of bright red rock on the mountains where the sunbeams landed. The clouds cloaked themselves in colors to ranging from soft pinks to brilliant amber tones and back to variable shades of gray, all mixing and changing, curling and unfurling moment by moment before us as we feasted on nuts and cheeses and crackers. I thought to myself over and over, “This is why we do what we do. This...is the 50 Amp Vision Quest.
Whenever we visit Tim and Laurie it seems, no, it’s fact...something magical happens. This day bore that truth out yet again. Along the way back to Bernalillo as I was driving it occurred to me in the midst of this joy in traveling, hanging out with friends, experiencing the land and the people, that if I were to do it alone, if I did not have my lifelong love, my best friend, my lover, Diane, to enjoy this with me, to share it with, I would be lost. I don’t think I could enjoy it. I don’t ever want that to happen, yet as age continues to be seen and felt in my face and body, I am sometimes haunted by that possibility. It’s a distant shadow, but it creeps into my peripheral vision now and again. A few days later the unwanted shadow crept in again when I awoke. It came at me as a poem:
Blue Highway Blues
The world is over-drawn with roads
As a spider spins a web
To cross branches blowing in the breeze.
Mostly blue,
These back roads of inviting hue,
That meander lazily through Suguaro-strewn, scorpion deserts,
Circle the verdant, verde hills,
Climb long rows of resolute, stalwart mountains
On endless switchbacks besides crystalline falling waters,
Welcome the light of the Sun and bid it a longing farewell, once again
From sandy ocean's edge and craggy, hidden ledge,
Pierce small towns and villages of those living and dead who stay
For want of love, mercy, and money.
To marvel at the wonders of the world in motion
And search your soul along these blue threads alone
Would truly be the cruelest agony amidst ecstasy.