Ridin' with Billy the Kid, into the Valley of Fire

Listening to the weather reports on our little solar/hand cranked weather radio, we realized it was time to get out of town, and make a break for Albuquerque. One cold front had moved through the day and night before, and now we had a day and a half before the next one was due, bringing 50 mph winds roaring across the southern plains and mountains. One forgets how high you are in the Southwest, even on the flatlands before you start climbing the now snow covered mountains you see in the distance. At 5000 feet and higher, the days are bright, and the nights are cold. We’ve been either just above or below freezing for the past week every night. But we figured if we can get over the mountains to the west of us today, and then get into Albuquerque by Friday afternoon, we can hunker down there for the weekend, maybe north of the winds, and do a bit of big store shopping in the big city ( Camping World for a better 12volt fan for the desert heat (maybe), Costco to stock up on bags of nuts, and our first Trader Joe’s since the mid=Atlantic states, to find our friend three buck Chuck). So as the day was brightening, we said good-bye to bottomless lakes, stopping one last time at the overlook above the now calm lake and campsites. The sky and lake are blue, the hills and rocks around are tan and ochre, the junipers, cacti and mesquite add green and brown tones, and the 6 workers from the Roswell Correction Center, who’ve been paying their civic dues working the grounds here every day, add tiny dots of vivid color in their day-glow orange prison coveralls. Ah, where’s my easel and canvas.

We pass through Roswell one last time, this time going east west on 70 and 380, instead of taking the north south drag of 285. The west side of town is definitely more affluent, with larger, interesting houses on well kept, fenced lots, grass and shrubs and flower beds. East of Main, it’s more old adobe and tin, trailers and small homes, on fenced lots with sand and cactus and dogs. As we head west, onto the New Mexico range, we’re back in the Chihuahuan Desert, fairly flat and barren, at first with Cholo and antelope, then Creosote and cattle, breaking the monotony of dead, tan grasslands. After about 25 miles of slowly rising ground, we come into a much hillier, pretty area. There are real hills, and valleys, and one-seed Junipers adding their big clumps of dark green on the hillsides. At Riverside, a town that appears on one map, but not the other, we’re definitely in a river valley. There’s more houses and ranches visible along the road, instead of just fences and gates; and a larger variety of trees, and bigger ones too. We pass an enormous three story, many dormered house, with numerous outbuildings, set on an estate behind a gate that says Diamond A Ranch, and shortly thereafter arrive at the tiny post office of Picacho, New Mexico. The faded lettering on the wide tin roof says that this was once the home of the FRED P BOWSER Company, General Merchandise, but now it’s just the post office. Inside, while buying stamps for Donna’s new line of one of a kind post cards, we get into a long conversation with the postmistress Gail, and learn a bit about life on the Ranch in central New Mexico. She’s probably in her early thirties, and she and her husband are sheep farmers, meat and wool both. Contrary to the popular misconception, probably first started by the cattle ranchers over a century ago, sheep don’t destroy the range by overgrazing, but actually are easier on it, being lighter and smaller hoofed beings. Out here, due to drier conditions (the snows of this winter have broken a ten year dry spell), they think in terms of sections (1 square mile, or 320 acres) and put about 50 cattle to 5 sections, or about one animal for every 30 acres of range. The ratio of sheep to cows is 25 to one, so roughly speaking, you need an acre for each head of sheep you’re grazing. The coyotes are a real problem for both type of rancher, often eating the newborn lambs or calves moments after birth. Because it’s all private land, you’re really effected by your neighbors attitudes towards these predators. If he doesn’t work to control them, they’ll live on his land, but devastate the herds on yours. We also learned that the big Diamond A Ranch we saw down the valley used to belong to the first owner of Atlantic Richfield (aka Arco petroleum), but he sold a lot of his holdings; and the present owner is a banker from Dallas, who just spent four million dollars remodelling the house and rerouting the river to make it more idyllic as a second home. If we had only been here sooner, we might have bought it instead…ha. We left the post office with an assortment of stamps and info; and Gail was thrilled to hear stories of Canada, and receive our present to her of a Canada Post shopping bag, adorned with a big blue graphic of the 2 cent Polar Bear stamp. She also steered us away from the south road through Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs (a resort/ casino/ skiing/ horse racing pair of towns high up in the mountains) towards the quieter Billy the Kid scenic route of 380 and the small towns of Lincoln and Capitan.

At Hondo, we veered north, and soon were in Lincoln, a quiet little tourist town of a more laid back nature. It has been designated a state historic site, because of the famous (?) Lincoln County War that occurred here in the 1890’s, when two groups of fighting ranchers and land owners engaged in a series of deadly gun battles around town. It was also the locale of Billy the Kid’s adventures and last days, and is probably more famous for the Kid, but the historic site designation has given the impetus and money to maintain and restore most of the town to it’s original look of the late 1800’s and early twentieth century. We spoke to Joe Smith, the local postmaster in Lincoln’s original post office, and marvelled at the steel post office boxes, beautifully cast with American eagles, that have been in use since 1915. We also marvelled at the wanted posters on the wall, $10,000 reward for two different post office robberies in New Mexico, and found it remarkable that these were current, modern day posters, and folks still robbed post offices. After a quiet lunch by the side of the lazy road, we headed farther west through Capitan, home of Smokey the Bear. He has a National historic monument of his own, and there are stores and businesses and a town that’s economy is strongly based on his notoriety. Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires.

From there, we started to descend out of the mountains, and aimed towards Carrizozo, a small railroad town that saw its heyday at the turn of the last century. Peaking in population between 1910 and 1920, the modernization of the railroad started its true decline in 1940. Now it’s another quiet little town in the mountains, with some beautiful old buildings lining it’s two main streets, an interesting collection of shops and galleries, and a small resident community of artists, drawn by the clear air, long vistas, and low real estate prices. After slowly tooling around town, and noting the lowering sun, we went 4 miles out of town to the Valley of Fire National Recreation Area. We had heard about it, and the Malpais, or badlands; and wanted to check both out. Situated in a huge area of ancient lava fields, the park was surprising nice. There was only one powered site still available, the ugliest of the bunch, but we wanted electricity for the anticipated cold night, and Donna’s back and leg were aching and needing to stop; so after reconsidering several times, we pulled back around and took the last spot. We had heard that the lava flows, especially the a’a’ (ah-ah), as opposed to the smoother pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy) can be brutal on soles of shoes and dog feet, but saw a glorious hiking path through and around the nearby lava fields, so I figured this was our home for the night.

About 5000 years ago, a nearby vent (not a full fledged volcano) had allowed the escape of a large amount of molten lava, and now this lava flow is one of the youngest in the states. It’s 45 miles long, averages 45 feet thick, and covers 127 square miles. The park is built on a kipuka, or high island of the original valley floor, that was surrounded and bypassed by the slowly moving lava. Now, you go from traditional desert (prickly pear, chola, mesquite, juniper, sotol, road runner, rattlesnake, etc.) to lava field, and can see how the species have adapted to this stone intruder on their lands. A lot of the flora has found the crevices attractive staring points, the bats have moved into the caves formed by bubbles and ridges, the lizards and rabbits have become black and brown to better hide among the dark lava, and life goes on. They say that there are actually more species living around the Malpais than out in the unbroken desert. Dixie and I had a wonderful time walking the paved trail, and learning more about the area, and desert in general, from the very informative information boards placed along the trail. Later, after a rest, and as the sun was setting, Donna took her stroll around the lava with the Hawaiian names (the lava is very similar to that in Hawaii), while Dixie and I aimed towards the seemingly empty tent sites at the back end of the Park.

We first stopped at the highest point, now a lookout that allows you to survey the circle of mountains that glinted snow covered to the east, and loomed dark farther west. It was gorgeous. We saw from the info board that we could glimpse the White Sands to the south, and the Trinity area where the first A-bomb was exploded, and could see the lights of White Oaks and Nogal, tiny forgotten towns to the North. With the black lava all around us, and the white snow on the peaks 15 miles away, it was worth the 10 minutes, just slowly turning and looking. We descended into the lower fields at the back of the grounds, and walked further down onto the road that dropped into a slightly protected little canyon that housed the tenting area. And way at the back, we came upon two folks in two tents all by themselves. It was a lovely spot, and I felt we were intruding a bit on a private sanctuary. But no, not Dixie, she bounded right up, said hello, what do you have that I can eat, or at least sniff. The ice having been broken, I said hello, and noted the white pickup with Museum of New Mexico Archaeology Department logos on the side. Obviously native American, I had noticed these two people earlier as their truck pulled in and stopped at the shower room. I’m not sure exactly how the conversation started, but for the next 30 minutes I talked with Mary, a robust, shiny faced, dark skinned woman, about the dig they were doing just south of Carrizozo. They had been hired in September by the Department of Transportation, to do a final survey of this one area that had a few artefacts, before the road graders came in to start building the new four lane road next to the old two laner now in existence. And to everyone’s surprise and amazement, the two week , nope, there’s nothing there, let ‘er rip inspection, unearthed a site that’s now a mile long and growing. They uncovered a community /village center from over a thousand years ago, that will change current thinking about the who and how of the native cultures in this area. Mary spoke of findings seed depositories, carefully layered as they did, with clay between the generations of seeds, that still had a three different types of millet, perfectly intact. The found kivas, and milling areas, and storage bins, and pottery and arrowheads and countless other bits and pieces. They gridded it off in one meter grids, went down 20 centimetres, and found this whole world opening up to them, for at least a mile down the valley. Their one month job expanded to six, and tomorrow will be their last day, after which they’ll return to Santa Fe and try to catalogue and make some order out of what they’ve found. Mary said most of their team was staying in the Rainbow Hotel in Carrizozo, but she and her co-worker had spent the winter, since September, camping here, down in this little valley in the Malpais, choosing the peace and serenity and low cost of the outdoors, to the lights and heat and expense of the hotel. It was obvious from her beaming face that the whole experience had been magical. I asked her what next, a major new survey and dig? Nope she said, the road graders will be in soon to blade it all over, and pave it under. I couldn’t believe it, but she said yup, that’s probably what will happen, but it was wonderful that they found what they did. Seeing that the sun was going down, and she was giving me a good part of her existing daylight minutes, instead of finishing her packing, I thanked her, and said goodbye. She invited me down to the site in the morning, if I wanted to see it. She then commented on Dixie, and how patient she was, calmly lying, paws folded in front of her as she does, and I gave her the one minute version of the Dixie story. She said she recognized the Akita in her, and that she was obviously a very special being, because she had four toes. When asked to explain, she said her people believed dogs with four white feet (four toed) were special, and were the only animals allowed across into the other world. She said when I passed away, she would be there waiting for me, there to guide me to my grandmother, or some special place or people who were waiting for me there on the other side. She said that’s the reason she found us, that she was here to be our guide on the other side. I asked her who her people were, and she said Comanche, and Santa Clara Pueblo. She laughed, and said every day she must face War and Peace in herself. Feeling deeply moved, and thankful that I had met this interesting woman, who was so open and alive and quietly insightful, I slowly walked back to my life, with thoughts about lives of 1000 years ago, and how wonderful life today was, and what will be after we all pass on, or maybe pass over. What a day, what a world. Thank you, thank you. Some days I feel that I am so blessed, just being out in the world, open to what life brings.