Well, Kellie reminded me that I had probably better not promise how much of a day I will fit into the blog in the title, so I am still on Saturday in this version of the travelogue.
Anyhow, we left Fort Sumner and the very quirky Billy the Kid museum around noon or so. Besides two or three rooms of Billy the Kid paraphenalia, the museum has another twenty rooms of odds and ends. One room was old manual typewriters, one room was dolls, and one room had six old cars including a 1952 Willys Aero. I though Willys only made Jeeps, but I was wrong. I did not get a picture of the car because it sat in such a way that I could not get a good picture. Several rooms had saddle, tack, and carriages or wagons. The whole museum was a treasure trove of old signs--not for sale by the way. Below is picture of the one that I found most interesting.
What the hell is "after-thirst?" Doesn't it mean you're not thirsty anymore? It quenches your thirst? No wonder Squirt didn't make it big! That is the worst slogan for a soda that I have ever heard.
Anyway, I highly recommend stopping by the Billy the Kid museum in Fort Sumner if you ever head out west with a couple hours to spare. It's only about forty miles off I-40. Don't expect Fort Sumner to be a big place. It's a two horse hitching post town with only the main road paved. You kind of feel like you might be back in the 1800's if not for the one Valero gas station.
By the time we hit I-40 from Fort Sumner, it had begun to rain intermittently with the sun popping in and out of the clouds. Because the clouds were moving so quickly and because of the angle of the sun when it shone through, we were able to see dozens of rainbows, but you know how difficult they are to capture on camera. Below are the only two decent shots that I got until later in the day.
These picture do not justice to the vividness of either rainbow.
Anyway, since we still had time to kill before we could check into our VRBO, we decided to visit Cerillos State Park where there are old mines for torquoise, galena, silver, and manganese. Rather than staying on main roads, we took a "short cut" suggested by Google maps and drove on some incredibly and inexplicably crooked roads through some artist communities. Camino Los Abuelos from Galisteo to NM 14, the Torguoise Trail, seemed to take forever, and, worst of all, it started pouring rain. When we reached Cerrillos, the rain was coming down. I got out and read the signs, but we did not stay. Cerrillos State Park would wait until Monday.
Our next stop was the International Folk Art Museum on Museum Hill in Santa Fe. I had no idea what to expect, and here is what we found. A museum with a room roughly the size of a a football field full of dolls, figurines, toys, doll houses, puppets, toy castles, and various other artifacts from around the world set up in scenes. For instance, entire Alpine villages were filled with every type of citizenry from the butcher to the baker to the candle-stick maker, often each figure, house, shop, and shrub was in exquisite detail. It was a bit overwhelming--and a bit too much of the same thing over and over again.
You guys know how weird I am about what things appeal to me. Here are the few pictures of what I found interesting in the whole room.
This castle, probably about six feet tall, was made of silver. As you can imagine, it was well up on a platform out of the reach of anyone not eight feet tall. It was made for someone's child. How about that?!? A six foot silver castle for a child!
Sitting right next to this castle, like six inches from it, was this plain ol' wooden owl. I assume it was wooden, but I cannot know as it was also sitting on the platform well out of reach. The juxtaposition of the intricate detail of the shiny silver castle and the very plain and simple wooden owl that I could have carved was most amusing to me. Yeah, I already said that I was weird.
This is Pinnochio. I assume it is the real one since it is from Italy. Seated and inside of a glass box, he is about three feet tall, so I assume around four feet when standing. I guess that life as a real boy didn't work out for Pinnochio. For some reason, I felt very sorry for this puppet in a glass display by himself. It seemed he needed some friends or something, and I could not help but wonder about the air holes. Why would a puppet need air holes?
That is all the pictures that I saved from the "Toy Room." The other pictures that I took didn't stir anything, didn't seem memorable, so I deleted them.
The next room had a display of Mexican Paper Mache. Most of the paper mache articles were masks, but there were a few life-size paper mache figures that I found quite interesting. I shall post a few below and let you see what you think.
By the way, this paper mache child is making a sugar skull for Dia de Los Muertos.
I am not sure what this skeleton was about, but make sure to click on the picture and zoom in to look at all the detail work.
Well, I believe that is enough for today. When I get back to blogging, Kellie and I will still be on Museum Hill as it was still raining. See you back here in a day or two, I hope.
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