New Mexico Mountain Weekend....
It was a New Mexico mountain weekend filled with history, art, scenic panoramas and...go-karts.
A fun time and hopefully somewhat intellectually stimulating to young Jack who, if he had had things his way, would have spent the entire three day junket racing go-karts at the track in Ruidoso. We did do a fair amount of that, and Jack, the Mother and I had a great time. Jack, being under 16 years of age couldn't drive the super fast karts so Julie and I put in some lap times with him on the "fun track". It was fun...but Julie and I had to give the fast karts a go. And go we did. Julie did well and because I'm a tad heavier in weight I couldn't catch her, but I did catch a glimpse of her ahead, blonde hair pegged straight back by the blinding speed .
Julie and I are history buffs, so Sunday was mostly devoted to a tour of historical sites which abound in the area. Through the mountains we drove down to Capitan and by the Smokey the Bear museum, the original and factual bear cub, Smokey, having been rescued here in 1950. In a sad twist of irony, the picture of Jack and Smokey above was taken with a major forest fire as a backdrop in the same mountains where Smokey was rescued. The fires burned along the entire crest of the Capitan mountains fanned by 30+ mph winds. A fire so large that we could see the smoke overhead when we got home. A distance of over 270 miles.
Our history destination was Lincoln, New Mexico home of Billy the Kid and the famous Lincoln County War of 1878-1881. Lincoln is a great place for history and photography, having changed little since 1888. Many of the historic buildings are now museums with the old courthouse and jail where Billy the Kid was held being of special interest, especially to a ten year old boy. He got to have his picture made with a bullet hole left during Billy's escape...and stand on the exact spot where a deputy sheriff was slain during that episode. The homes in Lincoln range from the original old abode to the territorial style built in the 1870's, but perhaps one of the most interesting structures to us is a large circular adobe tower built in the 1850's as a place of refuge against attacks by the Apaches.
On our return trip we stopped at Ft. Stanton a military post built in 1855 to counter the Apache threat and serving on into the 20th century in a variety of capacities including a German POW camp and tuberculosis treatment center for the merchant marine. It was somber reminder for Memorial Day to see so many flags of various nations in the post graveyard. And then, of course, as a reward for Jack for cramming his head full of so much historical information we......once again raced go-karts before returning to our cottage for a great meal in the cool mountain air.
On the return trip to Midland we could not let opportunities pass for yet more history and art [much to Jack's chagrin......I told him he would thank me in later years]. On the way down from the mountains we stopped in at the Museum of the American West which has a good collection of antique wagons, guns and is now featuring the skelton of Sue, the T-Rex recently found in South Dakota. And a little further down the road in San Patricio we stopped at one of my art Mecca's.....the Sentinel Ranch of artist Peter Hurd. We had a nice chat with the curator of the Hurd Gallery,looked around the gallery and had a chance to nod a brief hell-o to noted artist Michael Hurd, son of Peter Hurd and grandson of N.C Wyeth. We also toured the ranch looking at the suberbly elegant guest homes in anticipation of a return visit this summer.
Then it was a push on to home once again through the flat lands and heat of West Texas. Really a nice short vacation combining all our interests; art, history and racing but most importantly just simple things like enjoying a quiet moment together on the streets of Lincoln.
