Roswell, NM

This morning it was 26 degrees when we got up.  The trailer next door had frozen water, we did not.

Most of the day was spent at the history and art museum.  Great collection of local old west goods, art, and NM Military Institute history.  hardly anything on the Lincoln County War, but this is Chaves County, Lincoln County is just east of here.  There is a large section on Dr. Robert Goddard who did most of his work here in the 20s and 30s developing the first liquid fueled rockets.

Off to Texas tomorrow.

Forgot to mention that yesterday in Columbus NM we met a woman in the museum who grew up in Shelburne VT.  She's a seasonal volunteer there.

It had warmed up one degree when I took this.  Notice that indoors wasn't balmy either.

 Imagine my surprise when I found this.  I am quite familiar with Andrew Wyeth from his work on the coast of Maine and also his father's work.  Henriette is his sister, she married a Roswell man who had been a student of NC Wyeth.  I was not familiar with Henriette or Peter Hurd, both of whom are well known out here.

Our camp is the far left, next to the water

The drive to Roswell, NM

We have left the Mexican border behind.  For much of the 80 mile drive from Columbus to El Paso the border was a half mile away.  Looks like a brown wooden rail fence like on a horse farm.  Just a marker, not a barrier of any kind.  You can't cut a border swath like in New England, there is nothing here to cut, it's the Sonoran Desert.  Which also means there is nobody there anyway.  A huge empty place.
Then the nice country above Alamogordo, into the Mescalero Apache reservation.  That high mountain area is covered in pine trees, but more sparse and without much understory.  Beautiful country.  Then into the town of Ruidoso and Lincoln County.  Famous for the Lincoln County War that got Billy the Kid started.  Historic markers every few miles related to those events.

Finally arriving at Bottomless Lakes State Park, so named because they are fairly deep sinkholes and such high salinity that swimmers float very easily, having a hard time diving down.  Yet they have lots of signs for PFD use anyway.

Sierra Blanca

When they say "Oversize" here they really mean it!

A fifth wheel hauling a utility trailer?

At Bottomless Lakes SP

City of Rocks SP and Pancho Villa SP, New Mexico

No blog last night due to lack of internet connection at the campsite, so you get two for the price of one today.

Tuesday
City of Rocks State Park is unique.  Many state parks are there because of some unique physical or historic occurrence.  City of Rocks is named for the rare pillars of rock that originated with volcanic pumice and ash deposits that are now above ground.  They do look eerily like some strange city buildings in a group with pathways all around them.  This park is rather remote, 10 miles or so from Silver City NM in the town of Faywood.  No visible sign of where Faywood is, nothing but open country all around as far as you can see.  Which out here is several miles.
During the drive we could see some dust storms creating a kind of haze on the scenery.  Wicked winds everywhere.  We found out later that I-10 was closed due to the wind. Gusts were predicted up to 45 mph.    That made the other roads a bit crowded.  We saw a few bicyclists who must have been wondering where all the truck traffic came from.  The trailer was a pain, buffeted by the wind, pushed all over the road.  I even watched some TT units being swayed by the wind.  Oh, yeah, that's why they closed the interstate!

Wednesday
No more wind!
Pancho Villa State Park is on the old Camp Furlong site in the town of Columbus NM.  This is the site of Pancho Villa's pre-dawn raid on the US town on March 9, 1916.  That led to the Mexican Punitive Expedition when 10,000 US soldiers under Gen. Black Jack Pershing spent 11 months in Mexico searching for Villa.  They didn't catch Villa but it was the first use of automobiles and airplanes in the US military.  Priceless experience for WW I another year later.  We checked out two museums and walked around town a bit.  Not much here outside of the history.  Nice park, nice sunset, nice open spaces.
We are 3 miles from Mexico, the lights of Palomas, MX shine much more brightly than anything on the US side.  This is a small town of 1600, 85% Hispanic.

City of Rocks:

dust storm

Callahan likes the view out the bedroom window

Pancho Villa:

The campground

View of Columbus from the park

Our camp

Several interesting items in the museum

Curtis JN-3 (Jennie)

Armored truck, precursor to the tank

Sunset at camp

On the Road Again....

Left Ben Avery at 0900, got in to Roper Lake State Park, Safford AZ about 2.  Nice park!  We walked all around the lake, saw lots of birds, a rabbit, some anow capped mountains on our west side.
Incredible scenery on the drive over from Phoenix.  Big mountain passes, narrow gorges, a short tunnel.  All impossible to photograph either because there was no place to stop or it was just too much to capture with a camera.

Three views from our lunch stop

Walking around Roper Lake

Yellow headed blackbirds

A Coot.  Can't tell if it's an old coot or not.

Palm trees and snow capped mountains.  How cool is that!

Our campsite at Roper Lake SP

Winter Range is over

Watched the Top 16 Shootoff and the Wild Bunch Top 8 Shootoff this morning.  That was fun.
That's the top scoring 16 men and 16 ladies who go one-on-one until there is one left, then the top man goes against the top lady.  The guy does not always win.

The awards ceremony lasted from 11 to about 2.  Nope, I didn't win anything more.  I placed 13th in Frontiersman and 14th in Wild Bunch Traditional.  My score would have placed 10th in WB Trad. Senior, but I'm 5 weeks too young!  hahaha

Later a group of New Englanders met at Henri's camp for unwinding.  Good time!



Here is a video of Half-a-Hand Henri (on right) in her first run in the Wild Bunch shootoff against Serenity.

Inside the main tent for awards

Second round, HHH (on left) vs Texas Tiger

Last day of Main Match

Four final stages at 11 AM, then some fun with a Gatling Gun.
Look below for a couple videos that Carlene took of the action today.  Stages were still very good, a little more simple today so I could run a bit faster.  Of course when I run faster I can miss.  Yup, did that.  As Yankee put it "the scoring gods were favorable to me" meaning I probably missed two but all three spotters called one miss.  That's the way it goes, sometimes you're lucky and sometimes they call misses that didn't happen.
After the stages we went over to the Gatling Gun.  I had to buy a few rounds just to have the sensation of firing that big boy.
This evening was another dinner and side match awards.  A few days ago I said I shot Plainsman OK, turns out to be better than I thought.  I got 4th place in Plainsman Traditional!  Yeee Haaa!

Vendor Row 2

Vendor Row 1 

Food section

Stage 3

Stage 4

View out the window of the camper

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