Santa Rosa, NM and Billy the Kid!

Feedlot near Wildorado, Texas

As we drove out of Texas through Oldham County, we passed a cattle feedlot near Wildorado. We had read something saying the county has 2,300 human residents and with the feedlot, over 28,000 bovine ones. Wow. That's a lot of cows in one spot. Normally, we've seen gigantic virtually empty ranches as far as the eye can see with only a few cows here and there, lazily munching on prairie grass.

We continued heading west and into New Mexico where we stopped in Tucumcari, a small town with a bit of historic Route 66 running through it. We popped into the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum, part of the Mesalands Community College. The museum was great! We found lots of interesting displays of dinosaur bones and factoids throughout, with fossils of sea creatures and sea plants as well as whole skeletons in bronze. Apparently the community college has the unusual ability to make bronze casts of bones and skeletons so that the public can touch them (instead of the rare fossils). We spent a fair bit of time staring into the mouths of raptors and other -saurs, and really enjoyed it! What a nice little museum.

Closed truck stop in Santa Rosa, NM

We motored on to our destination in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. This small town also has a section of historic Route 66 running through it, along with a separate pre-1937 section that is mostly gravel and now a private road. The main Route 66 section is lined with shuttered old businesses, many with their original signs still beckoning passersby.

Santa Rosa Lake SP Overlook..see the high water mark?

We camped at the Santa Rosa Lake State Park, centered around the Santa Rosa Lake and Dam, a reservoir of the Pecos River. The park is 500 acres on the high plains with lots of hiking and equestrian trails, and boating, of course.

We've had the oddest series of weather in the course of the last few days...Monday in Amarillo was 90 degrees and windy (but snowing in Albuquerque), Tuesday was 80 and even windier and at night we had to use the heat, Wednesday was overcast and only 60 degrees during the day as we left Amarillo, but closer to 80 by the time we got to Santa Rosa with absolutely no wind. Thursday was 85 and very dry with a light breeze...a little something for everyone this week.

Near Puerto de Luna

Old sign in Puerto de Luna

On Thursday, we drove to Puerto de Luna, a miniscule town south of Santa Rosa where Coronado's conquistadores built a bridge across the Pecos River in 1541. That bridge is long gone, but the legend remains, though the historical marker about it managed to elude us. The area near the town is a vast canyon formed by the Pecos River, and the town is mostly old adobe buildings (many of which appear to be vacant). We took in the beautiful scenery before turning around and heading back to Santa Rosa.

Blue Hole, Santa Rosa, NM

Blue Hole fishie!

Santa Rosa is the 'city of natural lakes'. One of these is Blue Hole, an 81 foot deep naturally formed pool that is amazingly clear and at a constant 64 degrees year round, which makes for great scuba-diving. The Park Lake is also in the middle of town, though, like Santa Rosa Lake, is at very low water due to last year's severe drought.

Cholla cactus

We figured out later this is...
Wild Rhubarb

With the pre-1937 section of historic Route 66 right on Blue Hole Road, we drove a little ways to see where it led. Not far. It turns into gravel and passes two concrete billboards on big boulders. Those were not terribly interesting, but we did notice some pretty desert flowers along the road. The cholla cactus is a plant with thick branches and lots of thorns, but with knobby yellow flowerbuds. We also saw a nameless low-growing reddish flower that had sprouted up all over the place, though we're pretty sure it has a name.

Ken as 'Billy the Kid'

We drove on to Fort Sumner, where Billy the Kid was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881. We first visited the Billy the Kid Museum, a treasure trove of artifacts, guns, memorabilia, and assorted papers about either Billy or one of his former associates, as well as lots of other unrelated antiquities. We also watched a video about Billy's brief but infamous life, as well as his legend's impact on our country's love affair with the "wild west".

Next we continued on to the location of the original fort that served to hold 10,000 Navajo and Mescalero Apache Indians at the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation, at Fort Sumner between 1863 and 1868. These Indians were forcibly marched by the U.S. Army over 450 miles from Fort Defiance in Arizona to this reservation by order under Manifest Destiny. Many died along the way. The U.S. government eventually realized the failure of the reservation to 'convert' the Indians to farmers and signed the Treaty of 1868, granting the Navajo sovereignty under Federal Law. The fort was abandoned in 1869.

At this point, Lucien B. Maxwell purchased the old fort for $5,000 and built a cattle empire there. After his death in 1875, his son, Peter, took over the family business. It was in Pete's home that Billy the Kid sought refuge (including visiting his girlfriend, Pete's sister, Paulina), but was discovered and shot by Pat Garrett. William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney was only 21 years old.

Billy the Kid's tombstone on right
under metal strapping and fencing

Billy the Kid has been buried in the local cemetery in Fort Sumner since his death, but his tombstone has done quite a bit of traveling. It was stolen in 1950 and eventually recovered 25 years later in someone's backyard in Texas. The second time it was stolen was in February, 1981, where it was discovered in a truck driver's bedroom in California two weeks later. The Fort Sumner sheriff retrieved it and now the tombstone is locked down under a metal cage to prevent it from wandering away again.

We drove back to Santa Rosa, but not before accidentally detouring down an identical road with almost no distinguishing features except a puny little 'town' of two houses and several empty buildings. We went 40 miles out of our way correcting that mistake. Ugh.

All in all, a great day!