Roadtrip 2 (Day Six) Tijeras and Albuquerque

On Day five we arrived at our AirBnB in Tijeras just around sundown.  We’ve not booked with AirBnB before but had heard some good stories and some bad stories but we wanted to experiment after out up and down hotel experiences the past few days.

Treehouse

We stayed at Brinkley House and I was blown away by how good this place was.  I know they are not all like this but we’ve set the bar pretty high!  We wanted something a little away from things which we could use as a base for exploring the area…we loved it so much we kinda abandoned some of our plans for the day and stayed hanging in the house.  It is a beautiful little house with excellent tech gadgets (Apple TV, speakers throughout the house, wifi, SEPARATE wifi in the beautiful tree house which has electricity and a bed!!  It is also only 4 mins from route 66 so was close to the area but far enough away to feel like we are in the country.  Lots of little outdoor spaces for relaxing and even a horse shoe toss area. The hosts were also very friendly and had some great little extras which really made the stay.  That coupled with their friendliness and willingness to help meant they got full marks from us!  The kids would not go down to the mysterious basement though 😉

Sundeck at the back

We relaxed in the morning and then decided that we would explore the close area instead of venturing further afield to someplace like Santa Fe.  We had been given a tip to visit the Sandia tramway which is a cable car up to the top of Sandia Peak.  We headed there after lunch on the porch and were not disappointed.  The mountain rises up to 10,738 feet above sea level and we start below in a cable car which take us up to the top.  The views up there were spectacular!  We also saw snow for one of the first times since we moved to Texas!

Sophie and Ben enjoyed skelping each other (and me) with snow balls.  Sophie was particularly proud of hitting her poor brother straight in the kisser with a well-placed shot.  He puts up with so much that boy and never seems to get annoyed.  I’d have decked my brothers in the snows then kicked snow on them till they had to resurrect Scott and Amundsen to help dig them out…just saying. 

It was our first time on a cable car too which was spectacular which we live streamed on the way up.

After this we headed down the hill.  I had noticed a Breaking Bad tour leaflet in the foyer of the Tramway so I Googled – Walter White’s address just in case.  It turns out it was only 5 minutes away from where we were!  So it would have been rude not to.

We drove over there but I read in places that the owners were a bit annoyed by tourists (especially since some jackasses had thought it would be a good idea to throw pizza on their roof (like the famous scene) and this had gone on for a while now.)  So we just drove by and took some pictures and stayed away from the property itself.

Followed that up with lunch at yet another place which looked poor from the outside but had great food and service!  Huge Chinese food portions in the China Garden.  Yelp has yet to steer us wrong!  We did take a ton of food home with us which I may have for breakfast…don’t judge me 😉

After this we headed back to the house and relaxed playing cards again and sitting on the porch looking out to the wilderness.

View from the front porch

Sun deck

treehouse

Horseshoe toss

Cable car

What a view!

Walter White’s house

Roadtrip 2 (day Five) Roswell to Tijeras via Fort Sumner.

Day Five – Roswell to Tijeras via Fort Sumner.

After day four being a bit of a barnstormer in terms of fitting things in.  Day five was a little quieter but we still got a lot in.

We were a little slower in getting organized in the morning just because we could do.  After breakfast we packed up and headed on the road.  The Road from Roswell to Fort Sumner is possibly the longest straightest road I’ve been on.  We turned about 3 times in 105 miles and changed road I think once!

After a brief stop off to make sure Ben got a Gandalf picture in the middle of the desert we hit Fort Sumner just around lunchtime.  The town is most famous as the place where Billy the Kid was killed (similar to Sam Bass in Round Rock 😉 ).  We visited the Billy the Kid museum first.  It’s a Billy the Kid and Fort Sumner mash up but it’s pretty entertaining.  The staff were friendly and nice.  Everything from Billy’s rifle on display to old cars which were used in the town.  It’s much bigger than it looks on the inside.  It’s good to talk to the folks in these places as they have such a fascinating local insight into what has been going on in the town.

The guy behind the counter told me a fascinating story about the Kid’s grave site.  If you look at the picture you will see that there are no grave stones behind the grave.  This is not because there is no-one buried there but it is because in the 1940’s a wealthy Texan ‘bought’ the grave and though he had bought the whole cemetery and so destroyed all the grave stones behind to make sure the kid’s grave was front and centre!  The locals only found out after the fact and there was nothing they could do at that point as the other stones had been destroyed!

Note no graves behind Billy’s

When we visited the grave later in the day it was a very empty grave site but more to come on that.

After being round the museum and getting the obligatory souvenir crushed penny which Sophie has come to love we were all starving.  We had seen a little place a little bit down the road (Rodeo Grill) which looked good so we headed there.  Unfortunately it was closed when we got there so we went on the lookout for something else.  We found a place called Fred’s restaurant which looked a little dodgy from the outside (one of the windows was taped shut) but we had little choice so we went in.  It turned out well for us again!  Food was cheap but good quality…and lots of it.  I could not finish my Quesadillas…which anyone who knows me means it was lots of food ;-).  We all (5) ate for under $60 including drinks.

After lunch we headed to the site of old Fort Sumner.  The house where the Kid was killed (Pete Maxwell’s house) was damaged and then destroyed in a flood in the 1930’s so there was not a lot to see there but we did visit the grave.  Billy is buried with two of his friends and fellow Regulators Charlie Bowdre and Tom O’Folliard – his ‘Pals’.  His original gravestone has been stolen a couple of times so has iron bars over it and the grave itself is also covered in an iron cage.  Carol mentioned it looked like a prison…seems ironic that he could not be caged in life but was after death.

Older headstone showing Billy’s 21 alleged kills

There were only a few graves left in the cemetery after the destruction by the infamous ‘Texan’ mentioned earlier but they were mainly notable.  One of the graves was the ‘famous’ person in the site before Billy.  Lucien Maxwell is buried there and he is notable as the person who has owned the largest track of land in US history…a huge part of New Mexico and Colorado.  He died in the 1870’s and it was at his house (converted from the old Fort) that Billy met his end.

Lucien Maxwell who owned vast lands including Philmot Scout ranch

The story is that Billy fell in love with Pete’s (Lucien’s son) sister and he disapproved of this love of his sister Paulita and got a message to Pat Garret in Lincoln that Billy was in Fort Sumner.  Billy was actually killed in Pete’s bedroom.  Another grave that did survive was Pete’s himself.  Pete’s bedroom had a door to the outside and Billy went in from the outside whilst Garret was inside (unbeknownst to Billy).  One of Garret’s men made a noise on the porch and as Billy turned to see who was there Garrett shot him in the doorway from behind.

The door to Pete’s bedroom where Billy was killed.

After visiting the cemetery we headed for our trip to Tijeras (outside of Albuquerque) where we are staying for the next couple of days.  Along the way we traveled along I-40 which at times is the route of the historic Route 66 and at times veers off.  We did pop off onto the original Route for photos though.

We arrived at the Air BnB we had hired for a couple of days around sundown but that’s a story for tomorrow.

 

 

RoadTrip 2 (Day Four) – Roswell, Lincoln and White Oaks

Lamposts in Roswell

Woke up to a beautiful day in Roswell with not a cloud in the sky.  We were looking to accomplish a couple of things in the day.  The kids wanted to discover the UFO stuff in Roswell and I was keen on exploring the Old West Stuff further west.  We split the day in two so we could get the most out of the day.

Morning.

International UFO museum in Roswell.

Downtown Roswell (and most of the town) has aliens littered all over the place and the economy seems like it is based solely on extraterrestrial beings coming here in the 40’s (or 50’s if you believe the government apparently).

The main centre piece is the International UFO museum which has a lot of paper cuttings and exhibits from around the time of the famous crash in 1947.  It was relatively cheap to get into ($5 for adults(2017)) and we went in for a look around.  Lots of conspiracy theories and lots of good info too on what went on.  I liked the area where they debunked famous pictures of flying saucers – one guy just threw his cowboy hat in the air and photographed it out of focus…that’s not even trying!

The kids liked it though and Ben picked up an X-files (I want to Believe) poster from one of the many souvenir shops along the way.

After we were there we headed out to ‘Billy the Kid Country’.  There is a whole area which has lots to see for someone who likes to explore the old west.  It was a good distance from Roswell but we got to travel across some of the most spectacular scenery we’ve ever seen. 

Whilst travelling we encountered a little town which we had no intention of stopping at called Tinnies.  However the Preacher was one Cowboy Preacher Jack Ferguson so we had to stop for some pictures.  Jack Ferguson was Carol’s dad’s name and he passed away not long after we moved over to the US so it seemed fitting that we stop and take a look.  Ironically we found that in Tinnies and he and I shared more than a few tinnies in our time!

Heading back out we stopped again in a town called Hondo for fuel and ice cream.  I’ve never been concerned that we’d run out of fuel before when the gauge is saying we have more than 100 miles left but that is how far from anywhere we were at this time!!

Billy the Kid country.

First proper stop was Lincoln.  This is one of the best preserved towns from the old west due mainly to the fact it fell on hard times after the boom times of the 1880’s and never expanded like lots of other towns.

The kids outside the Tunstall MacSween store

To understand why I was so happy when we got there I have to take you back to my childhood.  When I was young (about 14) the movie Young Guns came out and I loved it for it’s escapism and when Young Guns 2 came out a couple of years later I liked it also but did like the soundtrack probably more.  They are not Oscar material but good escapist fun.  My brothers also loved the movies and we’d spend many an afternoon watching them and insulting each other with lines from the movie or skelping each other on the head whilst shouting ‘Reap the Whirlwind!.’  So the story of Billy the kid is one which I have liked and I’ve read a fair bit on him and watched other movies and documentaries when they come on.

The spot where ‘Bob’ was killed

I was expecting Lincoln to be built up and to have lost all of it’s old west charm and frankly so did Ben who was expecting me to do my usual by asking him to imagine something was still there ;-).  I could not have been more wrong.  The town still has all of that old charm and the building are still there including actual Bullet holes from Billy’s six shooter!

For $7 (for adults) and free for kids you can wander through the old west and the story of the Lincoln County Cattle wars with actual buildings from the time.  I was especially excited about the County Court house which was first used by a certain Sheriff Pat Garrett and has the room where Billy was held before his daring escape from hanging.  They even have the window where Billy kills his captor Bob Ollinger and where the movie has the famous line – ‘Best Dollar eighty I ever spent’.  It’s not exactly like the real thing but I was surprised I could see the outline of what went on from a Hollywood movie of the 80’s!

The window and the spot on the ground

We then had lunch in the only food place in town which happened to be Jimmy Dolan’s old house.  Dolan was on the ‘other’ side of the wars with Murphy against Tunstall and MacSween and he fell on hard times after the wars and went broke.  His house has been changed and tweaked over the years but it was still a brilliant old home and serves as a lunch place and B&B.  Our waitress, Sage, was superb and told us so much history about the place and the town.  She was a wealth of local knowledge and even told us about her boyfriend who was apparently the great great grandson of Geronimo!!!

There was also some cool stuff you don’t find in books.  She told us about the ghost in the house that folk have seen who looked a lot like Dolan’s wife who died in childbirth at 25 and a great story which happened recently where a metal detectorist came by and found a silver dollar and an old wheel.  What was fascinating was there is a picture in the house of Dolan’s family outside the house and Dolans daughter is pulling an old cart…the wheel they believe was from that!  Spooky but incredibly cool.  I also had some excellent home made Chili…because well…the old west!

After that Sage gave us directions to our next destination and off we went.  We wanted to visit White Oaks which was mentioned in the movie and at that time was the second biggest town in New Mexico.  It’s a Ghost town now and we’re always up for exploring a Ghost town.  Before we hit White Oaks though we stopped into Fort Stanton which is another historic site and was used to house soldiers (especially Buffalo Soldiers) to repel Indian attacks.  It was also a base for General Pershing (commander of the US forces in WW1 and who the tank is named after).

White Oaks was quite a journey away (about 45 mins drive from Lincoln at least) but it was a fascinating place.  Not least of which was the fact that this used to be home to thousands and had 4 newspapers and it’d own opera house and was now some ramshackle houses and a lot of fields.  It was notorious in it’s day for being a place of ill repute with brothels and bars entertaining the local gold miners all looking to make their fortune but when the gold ran out and the locals got a little greedy with the railroads and the railroad bosses ran it away from the town it fell on hard times.

The only saloon left was the fantastically named ‘No Scum allowed Saloon’ which only opens at the weekend and sits alone on the main street which used to house countless places.

We explored the cemetery too which had a few famous names in there.  An ex Governor of New Mexico and Deputy Sheriff Bell who was killed also in the kid’s escape from Lincoln.  The most notable person though was Susan MacSween Barber who was the wife of Alexander MacSween of the Tunstall/MacSween group and really the winner of the Cattle Wars as she came out of it with both her life and her fortune!  (Murphy, Tunstall and Macsween were all killed and Dolan went broke).  She became known as the Queen of New Mexico cattle  and although she fell on harder times later in life she stayed in White Oaks till she died in the 1930’s.

The drive home was long as we had kept pushing out but still beautiful.  Tomorrow we head out for Tijeras and Santa Fe!

 

 

Chapel at Fort Stanton

Outside the Dolan House

The famous ‘Hello Bob’ Scene

The courthouse where Billy was held

The Torreon outside of which Sheriff Brady was killed

Roadtrip 2 (Day Three) – Odessa to Roswell via Carsbad Caverns

Up early and had breakfast at the hotel.  We were miraculously on our way by 10 am which meant we had plenty of time to get to our next destination.  We had a stop along the way to take in Carlsbad Caverns.  Firstly though we had to get out of Texas.  It’s not till you live here that you appreciate the vastness of the state.  We went for probably the quickest way out of the centre of the state (due West) but we still drove for 5.5 hrs on day one and then another 1.5 hrs on day three before we hit New Mexico.

It’s a funny thing when you move from state to state as the roads are in some cases…a state!  The road in Texas was fine but the exact same road once we were over the border in New Mexico was bumpy as anything!  It was exciting though as Carol and Sophie had never been in New Mexico and Gran had only ever been in Texas when visiting the states!

So we drove through New Mexico till we hit White City (7 miles from the caverns) where we stopped for lunch.  There was really only one place for lunch there (Cactus Café) and it was cheap and cheerful if not haute cuisine.  It had obviously had a western theme at some point and had swing doors etc into a bar which was now closed and lots of pictures of famous outlaws and cowboys.  It had lost a little bit of the authenticity with state lottery posters and Pepsi clocks but it was somewhere to eat along the way and the food was ok.

We then drove up the 7 miles to the caverns.  What a drive.  Beautiful scenery and gorgeous vistas galore.  It’s a steep drive up the hill to the top of the mountain where you can see all across the valley.

The caverns have almost half a million folks pass through each year and the entrance sits 3500 feet above sea level (Carlsbad the town is just 52 feet above so you can see the climb to the top of the hill is high).  It’s relatively cheap as a day out as it is a national park ($10 for adults and free for kids 15 and under (2017 prices)).

When we arrived it was mobbed.  And the queue looked enormous to pay for our tickets which was a little off putting but the staff are great and the huge queue was only about a 10 minute wait which pleased me as I am not a queuer by nature!  Anyway the family disappeared off into the gift shop and I waited in the queue then we had to decide how to get in and out of the cave.

It’s a long walk and is about 1.25 miles just to get down to the bottom then around 1.5 miles walk around the huge inner caves then the same back out again.  We decided to walk down the very steep hill to the ‘Big Room’.  I have to say it was a work out to get just down the hill as the gradient at about 20 degrees (avg) was pretty steep…sore on the calves.

When we got to the bottom (there is a restroom, restaurant and gift shop down there!) we had to decide if we were going to stand forever in the enormous queue for the elevator or walk back out.  The kids and I decided to walk back out but Carol and her mum would wait in the queue.

It is not an easy climb out.

It took us 40 minutes to get out of the cave and although we only covered about 2 miles of actual walking it was the equivalent of 82 flights of stairs!  I was hot a bothered but very proud of the kids (Ben took it like a mountain goat but he’s been like that since he was a small kid (3 years old) climbing Ben Lomond and Sophie struggled a little more but was a trooper.  The big guy had the hardest time of it but after last year’s Philmont trip with scouts I’m still able to climb hills relatively well and the legs recovered well when we stopped to rest.  I actually broke my record on the day for most flights of stairs climbed (which was 110 at Philmont) and is now 113 at Carlsbad!

When we got out the others were still in the queue and frankly were there for a further 40 minutes!!!  80 minutes sitting in a queue sounds like worse torture than the climb to me!!After that we were ready for the last part of the journey up to Roswell!

The Alien theme is a bit much at times and even our hotel (a Hampton Inn) had an alien in the foyer but it was all good fun.  We ended up eating in Applebees as it was the only place open by the time we got there but it wasn’t too bad and was our first time in that chain.

Hotel was much nicer than Odessa (chain hotels tend not to be too bad) and we’re ready for another day tomorrow.

Roadtrip 2 (Day Two) Odessa

Day Two.

Still in Odessa

Unlike our previous roadtrip we tried not to go too far each day (we had a deadline last time) so we stayed in Odessa for an extra day to explore the area.  We are glad we did though.  We got to do a lot of things that were great fun.

Morning

After breakfast we headed to Sandhills state park in Monaghans.  This is an amazing area of the world.  Like being on Tatooine with all the sand dunes etc. For a couple of dollars you can hire sand sledges for sledging down the dunes…and slide we did!  Great fun and well worth the effort.  The place itself is beautiful also.  We also bought some excellent walking sticks from the shop.  I got a Moose (Our Boy Scout troop adult troop is called the Moose Patrol), Ben got a Wolf and Sophie got a paw print one. 

‘Talk softly and carry a big stick’ is my new policy.

 

Afternoon.

After grabbing some lunch at a highly rated Chinese buffet in Monaghans (it looked terrible from the outside but the food was good).  We headed to the 2^nd or 3^rd largest Meteor crater in the US (6^th largest in the world) – one sign says it’s the 3rd and the leaflet says the 2nd – the Odessa meteor crater..  We had tried going there first but it was closed till 1pm on a Sunday so it became our afternoon thing.  It looked great but unfortunately we didn’t get to go down into the crater as there had been a rain storm the night before and the clay floor was too slippy.  Cool place though.  Whilst there the leaflet for the place mentioned other things in Odessa to do…so 15 mins later we found ourselves taking pictures next to the largest Jackrabbit in the world!  We’ve seen a ton of Jackrabbits this trip (especially on the road to the meteor crater).  The roadside attractions are one of my favourite bits about roadtrips!

Evening.

Swimming, Hot tub and Sauna followed by a free bar for 1.5 hrs…that’ll do…

 

Roadtrip 2 (Day One) Round Rock – Odessa

RoadTrip 2

Been a while since I blogged about our travels but the advent of our second big US road trip felt like something I’d like to do.  This time we have a visitor (Carol’s mum from Scotland) and we decided to go West instead of east.  We learned from our last road trip that 6-8 hrs driving each day meant we got to see less of the country so we kept it shorter distances.  We are going in a big circle from our house out to Roswell, Albuquerque, Amarillo and back home.

Day One. 

Mainly a travelling day as we head out to New Mexico.  As I said we don’t want to travel 6-8 hours a day like we did on Trip one to DC.  Not a lot happened till we hit just before Odessa when we got caught in a dust/Sandstorm.  Interesting driving through that.  We stayed in MCM Grande which looked on paper to be a good place for kids.  It kinda was and it kinda wasn’t.  It had a pool which was smaller than we thought and a soft play area but later on on Saturday night was like Lord of the Flies as kids ran amok!

Brady, Texas

Day One travel

It was obviously a place for folks to dump their kids whilst they drank.  It’s a way station rather than a destination so we’ll keep going.

We did see Jim Reeves’ tour bus on the way over here though so that was a highlight ;-).

We also marveled at the very literal names which Texas has for it’s places like 9 mile creek (a creek 9 miles long), Wall, Garden City – we did have our first rest stop West of Eden so there was that!

First rest stop West of Eden, Texas

We ended up playing cards in the room (bar was actually charging to get in!!  A hotel bar!) so we got to find out that Gran is a master at the card game ‘Cheat!’ (also known in local parlance as BS).