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.