Yes, my faithful readers, friends, family, and other, I noted that it has been two months and one day since I have posted a blog. I have but one excuse, GRADING. I don't know why, but I feel like I must explain.
You see, I will not sacrifice appropriate college rigor in my classes for my own personal time. Around 90% of the tuition paid at ASUMH is paid by Arkansas and U. S. taxpayers and financial supporters of scholarships. I have a responsibility to those people to make sure that students are getting what they pay for. I provide correction, feedback, and comments on every assignment so that students can improve their writing to a point where they can be successful in a career or in their future college endeavors. I believe that when students pass my classes they are prepared for the next phase of their work or educational lives. Now, I know what you are thinking, and I am not going to write the question, but the answer is "No, most do not."
There is my excuse. Take it for what it is worth. Let's move on to a travelogue, shall we?
Day One: Amarillo By Morning? Nope Not Even by Afternoon
Kellie and I have taken road trips West about four or five times. Last week's trip was our third to Santa Fe. On each of these trips, Amarillo, Texas has been our first day destination from Salem. It takes nine and a half to ten hours to make that 650 mile trip no matter which way you go. Well, not this time! A jacked-knifed, rolled semi truck and trailer between Willow Springs and Cabool, Missouri and two contructions zones that backed up traffic for ten miles because too many drivers do not know how to merge added at least an hour and a half to the trip. We rolled into Amarillo about 5:00, and we were bushed. We had already eaten in a town called Elk Springs at a place called Janice's Diner (Best catfish I've ever had! Crunchy and flaky!), so we basically were ready to sleep by the time we checked into our hotel. It was an auspicious start to the trip, and we hoped the first day's luck would not carry over to the rest of the trip.
By the way, before you ask, yes, we have stopped at the Big Texas Steak Ranch in Amarillo where you can get a free 72 oz steak if you can eat it and all the fixin's in one hour. If you have never been there, it is worth the spectacle once. After that, if you enjoy spectacle, you may want to go back. If you are looking for good food, Amarillo has many other establishments with better food and probably better entertainment.
Day Two: Billy the Kid, Art Museums, and Rainbows (Which Means It Rained!)
If you have ever seen my bookshelves, you would know that I appreciate the "true lives" of Wild West characters. I have biographies of Davy Crockett (Wild West? Yes, the Alamo, remember?), Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the Dalton Gang, Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok, Crazy Horse, Jesse James, Jim Bowie, several others that I cannot see from here, and--tada!--Billy the Kid. With time to spare to get to our VRBO on Saturday, how could we not spend a couple of hours to go see the grave and the museum of a Wild West character that I have read so much about?
Before we get there though, I would like to mention a short that's-how-things-go moment. We were driving into Hereford, Texas, the self-proclaimed Beef Capital of the World, and the first gas station in town had unleaded gas for $2.51. We had a half a tank, but I was not going to pass up this cheapest gas that I had seen in years. The odor of the stockyards and slaughterhouses, mixed with the smell of fermenting grain from the numerous grain bins was enough to curl my nose hairs, but I toughed it out for the cheap gas, and we drove on through the beef capital. As we left town, a line of gas stations appeared. The first had $2.47 on its sign. The next, $2.45. The last as we left Hereford, Texas proudly posted an unleaded price of $2.37. The smell stayed with us in the car the rest of the day.
Apparently, all that is left of the original Fort Sumner is the cemetery, and the cemetery is only left because Billy the Kid, Tom O'Folliard, and Charlie Bowdre are buried there. The cemetery is 3 and a half miles off the main road. I think the road is literally a dirt road at this point. The post cemetery is behind a "trading post," which we did not go in because it did not open until 10 AM. The cemetery is enclosed by a rock wall. Nothing else is there.
These are the actual graves of the three pals, Billy, Tom, and Charlie. The graves were pilfered so many times that concrete was poured over them, and then, after the return of Billy's tombstone the second time, the cage was put over the entire site. Billy's actual tombstone is in the front right corner. It was stolen twice. In the close-up below, you can see that it is barred and bolted to the concrete.
I have other pictures from the Fort Sumner Post Cemetery, but I must be moving on to the Billy the Kid museum, which is out on the main road and in the town of Fort Sumner about six miles or so from this cemetery. Kellie got pictures of the outside of the museum, and I got several pictures inside, but, for brevity's sake, I am only going to share a few.
Above is a piece of the curtain that hung over the door of the room where Billy was shot. Pat Garrett might have peeked through and slid his gun through the curtain to shoot the Kid.
Above is the door of the room in Pete Maxwell's house in which Billy was shot. The materials below explain that the two bullet holes were not associated with Billy. When Pete Maxwell's house was torn down, the door was used in another house, and the bullet holes came during a shoot out at the other house.
This is Billy's rifle that he gave to a friend two months before he was shot by Pat Garrett.
Zoom in and you can see where Billy carved his name into this rock that was found at Stinking Springs. The date that he carved, July 4, is well before the December shootout with Pat Garrett's posse in which Charlie Bowdre was killed, but the outlaws and rustlers hid out at Stinking Springs quite often.
Well, shoot! I am out of time, and I am only a quarter done with Day One. Stick with me, and I will get back to the travelogue tomorrow.