Showing posts with label Billy the Kid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Billy the Kid. Show all posts

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Indirect Redirection and Lincoln Revisited

Mike just sent us his blog link, Indirect Redirection. Check it: http://indirectredirection.com/

We took a road trip up to Lincoln today. We went there last year (check the separate blog page on the right for photos and write up on that visit). It was lightly snowing there today and just above freezing. I love visiting this area in the dead of winter because there are only maybe one or two other visitors there and only a couple of vehicles to be seen, so it was easy to put yourself back in time to the late 1800s and the Lincoln Wars era.

We visited the old Murphy Store/Courthouse where Billy Bonney (Kid) was held in an upstairs room in leg irons and made his famous escape by shooting two of his jailors.

Recent luminal tests show a huge amount of blood on the floor at the top of the inside staircase and trailing down the steps, marking the area where one of the jailers, JW Bell, was shot by Bonney and died a few steps out into the backyard.

On my first visit there I felt a huge wall of energy hit me, not at the top of the stairs, but actually farther down the upstairs hall, as soon as I started to enter into the room that was used as an armory during that time, and the room that, by some accounts, Kid apparently broke into and took the gun to shoot Bell with. The same thick and heavy energy was still present on this trip as well, and only in that room. This building was also used as a school in later years, so I don't know where this energy is emulating from, but the siolitary window looks directly down on the spot where Bell is said to have died. New Mexico is truly a most interesting state.
Above: View out the window of the armory room
The bench in the upstairs courtroom
Standing in the armory room, looking across hall into courtroom
An old adobe house with a billion windows
The safe downstairs in the old Murphy store/courthouse
Can't seem 'em, but there's caves up there
A couple of old rifles, Apache Winchester on the right
Shackles Kid escaped in, later cut off in Las Cruces, NM
Walls used to make a small room where the two windows are, and that's where Kid was being held in the courthouse

Above:  Top rifle is the 1878 Winchester that belonged to Bill Bonney (Kid). It was confiscated by Pat Garrett following Billy's death
Below that is Bob Olinger's 10-gauge Whitney shotgun (Serial #903) that Kid killed him with on April 28, 1881
Above: Looking straight out of armory room window
Above: Another shot of the upstairs area where Kid was held

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Tippin' Hats

Everything is yes, ma'am and no, ma'am, as soon as we got into New Mexico, and it will stay that way throughout our trip 'til we get west of the Continental Divide again.

The other morning we came out of the Cowboy Cafe after breakfast.  I went across to the feed store to have a look around, and a couple of guys got to chatting with us about the hitch we have in our truck for the fifth wheel, which, as some of you know, is a special kind that you don't see too often.  One of the guys was dressed in cowboy-type duds, which isn't uncommon around here; as a matter of fact, you even hear spurs jingling on well-worn boots of working cowboys walking past you the odd time.
Anyway, when I walked up to these two guys who were standing by our truck, the guy actually tipped his hat to me!  Then, after chatting for about 10 minutes, we casually introduced ourselves, and he tipped his hat again!  Turns out he runs a chain gang for the local county jail!  My kind of man, ha ha!
Kind of weird, but Tunstall actually came from Vancouver Island, where his father had emigrated to from England, and opened a mercantile there.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

On the Road Again

We're heading out on Monday on the way to Roswell, New Mexico.  We will be staying in Las Cruces Monday night before climbing another 3,500 feet to 7,000+ elevation and making our way through Apache territory, Ruidoso, San Patricio, along the Hondo River, arriving Tuesday night in Roswell, all Billy the Kid and the Regulators territory. 

The weather has perked up from the cold/snow stormy stuff that was all around us last week, and it looks as though it's going to be nice and sunny, highs around 16 to 20 C, but the desert nights dipping down around zero as usual this time of year.  So we'll see y'all further down the trail...