El Paso / Alamogordo                      June 22-23, 1996     800 miles
                                 
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   San Andreas

I started keeping commentaries of my trips in Feb '95, and my last log was Lake Meredith 9/4/95 (10 months ago!) All were one day excursions except the Austin trip, and the Grand Canyon trip of 2045 miles in Aug '95 (excluding my trip from Pittsburgh to Lubbock, of course). This one was over a weekend, and the primary purpose was to drop my 14 y.o. son Steven off at Space Camp in Alamogordo, NM. Sandy refused to go (ostensibly so as not to have to board the dog), but Barbara, my 9 3/4 y.o. was recruited.

As you might expect, the trip started Saturday morning at McDonald's for Egg McMuffins and coffee. We left there at 7:40 a.m. and headed south on 62/82 to Brownfield. Despite the drought, the median was filled with wildflowers. Tall yellow petaled flowers with black centers were especially pretty against the green carpet of grasses. It was a comfortable 68 degrees, but I had the air conditioning on anyway since we were doing 70 mph. This is the new legal speed limit in many of these parts.

We passed a truck with many steel containers stacked irregularly, two high. A couple of young cows stuck their heads out. One looked just like "Norman" (City Slickers). Cars, however, were scarce. So unlike traveling on the East Coast.

Our drought produced a patchwork of colors in the farms. Some showed green from irrigation, whereas dry croppers were copper and brown. Existence out here can be real hard. Names of towns like Seagraves tell it.

At Seminole we headed due west and turned on the radio at 9 a.m. to search for a National Public Radio station. We found one broadcasting from eastern New Mexico, and playing "Car Talk". Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers, is Steven's favorite radio show (mine too). We listened every Saturday in Pittsburgh, but Lubbock decided not to buy this NPR gem. Steven says when he's old enough to drive, he and his buddies will take Saturday morning rides into New Mexico to hear it, then home. Anything to leave Lubbock !

If this route sounds vaguely familiar, it's the same one I logged 4/2/95 in our trip to the Guadalupe Mtns, titled "Capitan Reef" trip. We stopped in Carlsbad for gas, food and restrooms. This is the last sign of civilization until El Paso.

After we passed the Guadalupe Mountains National Park I was exploring new territory. We came down the mountains and onto the salt flats of Texas. The Spanish in the 1600's traveled this 100 mile stretch between the mountains and El Paso in search of wealth and water. Indian guides on foot with Spanish soldiers and officers on horse carefully, and often unsuccessfully threaded through this country. The names of two towns remain on the map along 82/180: Salt Flat and Cornudas. This is desolate, god-forsaken country, even uninteresting to me! Winds blow dust and salt into the air. A crew was laying a pipeline along the route for miles and must have been experiencing what these ancient settlers felt. I was cruising in my air conditioned Jeep at 70 mph.

Mile after mile was nothing, a few cattle ranches, unending brown land, and the hardy yucca plant (pronounced YUCK AH in these parts). A rare road sign advised: stop for loading/unloading school buses! What, do birds and shrubs go to school? Where were these kids. Worse, I learned they travel 2 hours each way to school.

We finally approached El Paso. A sizable population of over half a million live in this arid climate wedged between the Franklin Mtns on the north, and the Rio Grande river which forms the city's southern and western borders. On the other side of the river is Mexico with the same bare, brown, ugly mountains as that on the US side. Lubbock has had only 1.13 inches of rain this month, but El Paso has had only 0.13. Because of the river (I'm guessing) the tap water in El Paso is drinkable, versus not so drinkable in Lubbock.

We came through the eastern part of town and entered the downtown area to within a mile of the bridges which cross over into Juarez. It was 2 p.m. (Lubbock time, an hour earlier locally but I'll continue to give Lubbock time), and we had traveled 325 miles. As there is no AAA red-star attractions in El Paso, and we were right at the zoo, well, we went in. The entrance looked to be the original when the zoo was built in 1956. However, inside considerable remodeling and building were transforming it into a modern complex of habitats, some still unopen. The elephant (Mona) was an original inhabitant, whereas many of the 600 animals were new such as Bengal monitors, blackbuck, asian tapirs and cotton-headed tamarins. We walked the entire 18 acre complex in under an hour in the 95 degree heat.

The kids were hot and tired by now and I set out to secure a motel room. The east side of El Paso seemed to have it's share of nudie bars, central El Paso had the airport and Fort Bliss, so I got on I-10 and headed west, then north. Passing the University of Texas, El Paso football stadium (Sunbowl), Executive Blvd Park, and finally Country Club Rd, I exited at I-10 and route 20 (Mesa St.), where we lodged at the Traveler's Inn.

Mesa Street is a major road with commercial buildings along it's entire course through El Paso. We drove east looking for a place to eat an early dinner. No one in my family likes Mexican food, and being so close to Mexico meant any place that served it would be the real stuff. Thus, we picked a Furr's Cafeteria. I got some BBQ'ed beef cubes over rice, Barbara got chicken, Steven fish and spaghetti. I learned when we returned to Lubbock the next day that Sandy went to the Furr's in Lubbock, same night, same time, saw the BBQ beef cubes and said to herself "Ric would probably eat that stuff".

After dinner we continued on Mesa and then detoured north towards the mountains and into the residential area. Nice ranch style homes throughout this area, with some mansions on the top of the brown hills. Despite the relative affluence of the neighborhood, there were more homes than I've ever seen with either green concrete for a front lawn, or black lava rocks, or white pebbles, or red pebbles or tan gravel or multi-colored rock/pebble/gravel lawns. The populace seems to live along a strip of the major roads. From most vantage points in these neighborhoods which climb up gentle sloping mountains, one can look south over the Rio Grande and see Mexico. There only the ugly brown hills dominant your view. Some areas towards Juarez have dilapidated structures up and down the hills, very vertical building.

Continuing down Mesa we had an overview of downtown El Paso. Two dozen or so skyscrapers, the largest was Norwest Bank, another a pretty emerald green glass structure. Ok, and certainly twice the downtown of Lubbock, but no Dallas or even close to Pittsburgh (a city of equal size).

What to do, and how to gauge a town? Why, go to the Mall! I got on I-10 and traveled through town to central/east El Paso where we went to Bassett Center, a large, enclosed mall with all the usual stores (Dillards, Mervyn's, Target, Victoria's Secret). The parking lot was full, and we noticed plates from both New Mexico and Mexico. The kids bought reading materials from a bookstore, I got a battery for my camera. All signs were in English and Spanish.

You're wondering about Mexico. Just across the Rio Grande, using one of many bridges, you can enter the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez (HWAH-res), population 1.5 million. The Travelhost magazine in our motel room describes Juarez Avenue as the main tourist strip, filled with small shops, restaurants, nightclubs, pharmacies (curious), and liquor stores. Teeming with people during the heat of the day, the place really comes alive at night. The crowd turns to teenagers and young adults. "The police are active in the evenings, but trouble sometimes occurs". This from a publication promoting tourism ! Me and my family stayed away like the plague. Instead we went back to the motel and swam in the pool.

We got up early, ate breakfast at a restuarant next to the motel and tried to check out. The mangement wanted me to pay for phone calls I made from the room. A list of 6 calls were all to Arizona and California, and made from 3 to 5 days prior to my arrival. It didn't take long to clear this up.

I got on I-10 heading north, paralleling the Rio Grande. Lush fruit farms, diary farms, cattle stockades and industry filled in the ribbon of land between the Interstate and the river to the west. Brown, uninhabited hills and mountains filled in the rest of the countryside on both the US and Mexican sides as far as the eye could see.

The ride up to Las Cruces, NM was pleasant, and after taking the north fork from I-10 to I-25 we could have continued to other New Mexico cities like Truth or Consequences, or Albuquerque. But that will be another story. Las Cruces, as seen from the Interstate, is a pretty, clean city of 60,000 which straddles the Rio Grande and nestles beneath the Organ Mtns to the west and south. Home to New Mexico State University (with branches in Alamogordo and Carlsbad) and near the White Sands Missle Range, the city is high tech and bristling new. Nevertheless, the homes, their lot arrangements, the stores all have to conform to the weathered terrain. By this necessity, things are done differently here compared to the rest of the country. With that comes a different mind-set as well.

From Las Cruces we headed east on 70 and directly at the San Andres mountain range. Tall, ruggedly sculptured but bleak and again that brown bare look. Although Las Cruces is in a vast flat basin called the Mesilla Valley, it is already 4,000 feet above sea level. Yet we climbed another mile to get over the peaks of the San Andres. With the mountains behind us, there was nothing. Nothing. Flat terrain, low shrub, infinite visibility to all points of the compass, and in the sky. No roads except the one we were on, and nearly hidden access roads which lead to far distant military sites speckled about the land. A few tall hills for observation here and there, otherwise nothing to be hit by a stray, or on target, missle. This was the perfect place for the Army to set up it's experimental missle testing facilities in the 1940's. Still is.

A large road sign informs drivers that route 70/82 may be blocked off for up to two hours at a time during missle firing. The same holds true at White Sands National Monument. The park can be closed with literally no warning, stranding visitors temporarily. No tours are available at any of these bases, but a stand of missles can be viewed in an outdoor park on weekends at White Sands Missle Range (with proper military clearance!) The missle range completely surrounds the National Park, and covers 4,000 square miles (twice the size of the state of Delaware).

It's now 10 a.m. (Lubbock time), and we've traveled 480 miles to get to the White Sands National Monument. At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert, a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin, marks the site of this natural wonder. This is the world's largest gypsum dune field, covering 275 square miles. White, hot, dry, deadly to almost all life which can't adapt to the rapidly moving dunes (up to 30 feet a year) which cover and bury the plants. A few cacti, the soaptree yucca, and some shrubs which can grew deep roots forming pedestals of sand after the dune moves on, survive. Ants, beetles, lizards, a pocket mouse and birds are active in the day's heat. Rodents, foxes, porcupines come out at night.

Gypsum, the stuff in your walls, never forms sand as it is easily dissolved in water and washed away. But in the Tularosa Basin there is no river to drain it away. This gypsum deposit was formed at the bottom of a shallow sea 250 millions years ago and then covered with marine sediment. It was uplifted 70 million years ago during the formation of the Rocky Mountains, but the dome collapsed creating the Tularosa Basin with the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges forming a ring. When rain does fall in this area, it dissolves the gypsum and carries it to Lake Lucero. There it dries in the Alkali Flat, creating selenite crystal beds with some crystals 3 feet long. Erosive forces of wind and changing temperature turn the crystals into sand and dust, where they blow and create the dunes.

The park is like nothing you would expect to see on Earth. And yet driving through the white dunes on solid gypsum rock roads created by plowing the gypsum to either side looks like a Midwest winter wonderland of snow. The searing temperatures and yucca plants say otherwise. We parked and hiked over a dune quickly filling our shoes and socks with the fine white powder. Sunscreen and water are a necessity. Digging in the sand is prohibited since the tunnels can quickly collapse and cause rapid suffocation. Sand surfing is allowed. Kids in bathing suits sit on winter toboggans or plastic flyers and slide down the dunes.

Just like the Antarctic, all this white can cause disorientation. The plowed roads are irregular (and white), the signs few, and driving through the park's 16 mile maze became disconcerting. I made it to the end of the trail and we got out again to climb, take pictures and fill our shoes. We carefully cleaned out the sand from our shoes and socks (the rules forbid taking anything out of the park) and left it at the base of the 60 foot dune.

After making some good buys at the visitor's gift shop we left this AAA starred attraction and continued on 70/82 northeast towards Alamogordo. A huge sign announces Holloman Air Force Base in both English and German (not Spanish). The Air Force Base (AFB) is an important part of Alamogordo's economy, and US history. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic explosion created a huge crater at what is called Trinity Site. Holloman continues to conduct rocket science research (and who knows what else).

Alamogordo, which means fat cottonwood, is a neet (spelled correctly) city of 28,000. As opposed to El Paso, it has a AAA starred attraction (the Space Center), and also has the oldest zoo in the Southwest, established with the founding of the city in 1898. New Mexico State University is tucked half way up the cliffs of the Sacramento Mountains on the west side of town, and the Space Camp complex of buildings rises above the the University and overlooks the city. It over looks everything. You can see a ribbon of white (White Sands) running along the San Andres mountains 20 miles away. Spectacular !

Check out their Web site

After lunch, I checked Steven into the motel which houses the kids for Space Camp. This is the third largest program after NASA's in Birmingham, AL and Titusville, FL. A joint venture between a private foundation and the State of New Mexico, it has grown during the 1980's and 90's to accommodate over 600 summer campers, from elementary school to adults, half day and week long overnight programs. We saw cars and vans from Alaska, AZ,CA,CO,FL,GA,KS,MD, Mexico, MI,MO,NM,NV,OH,OK,PA,SC,TX,UT,WI Steven met a boy from Pittsburgh, and others have come from all over the US, Canada, Venezuela and Europe.

Steven was anxious to be on his own, so Barbara and I left him and went to tour the place by ourselves. The four story International Space Hall of Fame, the John P. Stapp Air and Space Park, Hubbard Space Science Education Bldg, Clyde W. Tombaugh Space Theater (a unique combination of planetarium and OMNIMAX), and the associated classrooms and buildings at the University made this a very impressive place. And we had just visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. I expected Steven to have a good time as he was to go to Holloman AFB to ride in a F-4 simulator and centrifuge, do rocketry, and train to build a space station in weightless conditions (simulated in a large swimming pool).

Away we go again, west on route 70 and towards home (only another 300 miles). We slowly climb the Sierra Blanca Mountains and pine trees start to appear. This is Apache country, and the first town we approach, Tularosa (tula=reed, rosa=rose) was settled in 1860 and immediately destroyed by the Indians. A little further on we enter Mescalero, the headquarters of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, and their largest city at population 1300. Grazing land in these parts is plentiful, and every tract of land has horses. A large Church sits on top of a hill over looking the highway, and a horse is grazing on its front lawn. The temperature drops 15-20 degrees from Alamogordo as we continue to ascend into Lincoln National Forest. Ironically we see a car with Alaskan plates.

This forest of pines, junipers and fir is still semiarid, getting most of its water from the winter snows which make it a popular place to ski. However, in the summer, the ground between the trees is bare and brown, and the fire hazard rating is extreme in this subalpine terrain.

Ruidoso is one of New Mexico's premier year-round vacation spots, with skiing, golfing, riding, hiking and fishing. Neighboring Ruidoso Downs offers excellent quarter horse and Thoroughbred racing, hosting the final leg of quarter horse racing's Triple Crown ($2,000,000 purse). The Museum of the Horse opened in 1992. A larger than life series of eight sculptured horses are depicted galloping down the hillside covering an area larger than a football field. It is a captiving sight from our car window as we drive past.

Ruidoso itself is a huge community of homes, lodges, apts and commercial buildings immersed in the forested Sacramento mountains. Main street is the expected collage of shops, eateries, businesses and even a horse drawn carriage. Barbara and I look for a place to eat an early dinner which will suit both our tastes. A hard task which takes us out of main street and finally to a little dive, Chi Leo's mexican stand, where she gets a bean burrito, me a couple of soft tacos with interesting meats (not your standard ground beef).

Along New Mexico are road signs informing the traveler to turn to 530 AM radio to hear the history of the local territory. I had mentioned this in another commentary. The story in these parts is about the Lincoln County War of 1878, fought between two powerful landowners for control of the area's economy and government beef contracts. Ricardo Montalban describes the folklore of William Bonnie, and how in truth, "Billy the Kid" was only a bit player. Nevertheless, legends grew about the Kid and the city of Lincoln is now a restored frontier town which caters to tourism.

It is an hours drive to Roswell, but only if you can keep to the 65 mph speed limit. The winding single lane mountain roads create traffic jams as vehicles accumulate behind campers or old ladies in compact cars. Not usually frustrated, I passed a line of slow pokes using the shoulder on the right side. Alas, a new line formed miles later. Finally the road becomes a dual highway on the plains before Roswell. Equal numbers of vehicles split for the right and left lanes. Alas again, some of the cars in the left lane are still doing 55. A red custom four-wheel drive Explorer, which had been with me since Hondo, New Mexico, accelerates to 80, with me following, then dropping to his right. We cruise for awhile. Damn. How could we have not seen the state trooper in the median strip when it's so flat out here. We both break to 65. The cop U-turns and follows at 65, then turns on his lights and races up behind the other guy and pulls him over. Maybe my Jeep was shielded from the radar by him being ahead and to my left, but I tend to think cops prefer red cars to my blue Jeep.

Rather than take a pit stop in Roswell, we kept going to Tatum. The rest of the trip back followed the same log I wrote May 20th when I went to Roswell. The towns haven't changed, not even the weather. Again I saw storm clouds and magnificent lightning traveling from Brownfield to Lubbock, with the rain staying north of me. Barbara and I arrived home at 9:30 p.m. after traveling 799.3 miles (let's say an even 800).

EPILOGUE                                                  June 28-29, 1996

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Well, what gets left off must be picked up. So it was with Steven. I went into work Friday for a morning clinic, and Barbara went to camp. I picked her up at 12:30 and we went home to change clothes and eat a small lunch. We were out the door by 1:15 p.m. and headed back down 62/82 to Brownfield. A steady drive got us into Roswell, 170 miles and 3 hrs later. Barbara wanted a salad bar for our early dinner and the China Star manager ushered us in to "quick eat" so they could close out the salad and all you can eat chinese buffet. We did (eat quick) and they gave us a box of chinese donuts (destined to be thrown out), to eat in the car.

Driving out of Roswell, across the plains and into the mountains it started to rain. Rain hard. Rain real hard. The visibility was 10 feet and the road was a river. Luckily everyone went slow (40 mph). Not that there were a lot of cars, but it only takes one to hit you. It stopped after we passed Hondo and were 6 miles from Ruidoso. I took the opportunity to pull into Fox Cave, legendary hideout of Billy the Kid. This is a large 25 foot high natural formation know as Ice Cave. It was used by the Indians and later settlers and bandits. The present owners bricked up the front and set up various touristy stuff (petting zoo, hiking trails, pony rides, etc). I thought the inside of the cave would be a museum, but it turned out to be a gift shop. A wet gift shop, as the water from the rain was dripping onto the merchandise. We looked around for 15 minutes, bought a postcard and left.

The gift shop owner suggested we go through Ruidoso and visit the Inn of the Mountain Gods. We followed a side road which took us past various lodges and resorts, then crossed a line onto the Apache Reservation. The road was identified with a sign of an arrowhead with the number 4 inside it. A dense treed area of the mountain looked down onto man-made Mescalero Lake. The Inn was a resort, and it was adjacent to Apache Casino. The parking lots were full. Horse back riding, golf, boating and a beautiful vista awaited the guests.

We re-entered US 70 and continued towards Alamogordo. Another New Mexico radio broadcast told the story of the Mescalero Indians. Although the Native American Indians occupied the entire continent, the Indians of the wild west seemed to have gotten the most publicity through movies and books. The history books in our schools don't tell their story. History books never tell the story of the losers in a war, only the victors. New Mexico radio, and Ricardo Montalban, try to right this wrong. The new Americans had the overwhelming advantages of numbers, technology, public insensitivity, and brutality. It was a war of extermination and acquisition. Such wars are never pretty, and we as a country have done a better job than most in burying the memories and injustices.

Alamogordo meets us 6 1/4 hrs and 291 miles after leaving Lubbock. We check in and see Steven walking back with his group from dinner. We get the room next to his. The air conditioning has been broke for "a long time". Every one gets a fan in the room. I'd have checked out but it's only one night and I want the convenience of being near Steven.

I asked the desk manager about Cloudcroft and we get on the topic of cops and cars. I retold my tale of speeding and not getting ticketed near Roswell. Ooops, her husband is a NM State Trooper. She says they'll give you 10 mph over the limit and that 75 mph was voted the new legal limit but signs haven't gone up yet. Sunday is the worse day as the troopers are bored and give out tickets easier. The end of the month is worse still as they do need to complete their quotas. There, you got it right from the wife of the horse's mouth.

Tomorrow arrives and Steven sleeps while Barbara and I enjoy the motel's continental breakfast. Finally up, all three of us go to ----- McDonald's for McMuffins, etc. I wanted to visit the Toy Train Depot which houses hundreds of toy trains and has a 16-foot gauge train which rides through Alameda Park, but it doesn't open til noon. Ok, instead I figure we can go 16 miles to Cloudcroft and take tiny route 130 another 17 miles to Sunspot. There in the mountains is the Sacramento Peak Observatory run by the National Science Foundation. A large solar telescope is open to the public. I decide to get some information at the brand new Alamogordo Chamber of Tourism and find the observatory opens at 2 p.m. Too far, too late. Ok, what then. The city employee recommends the tour at Eagle Ranch Pistachio Groves just out of town. Tour starts in 15 minutes. We load up and get there at 10 a.m. local time. Sorry, no tours on Saturday or Sunday.

Luck would have it though that the lady in the gift shop gave me a verbal tour and showed me pictures of the harvesting and processing. Eagle Ranch is the first (1974) and largest (12,000 trees) pistachio grove in New Mexico. The Tularosa Basin has identical conditions as those found in the Middle East deserts of Iran and Turkey. Standing in the groves, one can look out to see the White Sands gypsum dunes against the San Andreas mountain range. Real neat. We spent some time in the store, bought quite a bit, and then went into the grove. In September, trucks wrap large metal panels around the female trees (the male trees do not produce nuts) and shake the nuts off the trees. The pistachio has a fleshy outer coating which must be scrubbed off. The shell casing (with the meat of the nut inside) can then be refrigerated and stored for up to a year. They stock pile 375,000 lbs to roast, salt, bag and ship throughout the year.

Through Apache country, and back to Ruidoso. Steven is asleep, but I stop at Fun Trackers, an amusement center in this resort town with go-carts, water boats, video arcade and Mountain Miniature Golf. The kids and I want to try every miniature golf course in the country, so we try this. Pretty lame except for one interesting hole where you putt into a hole, the ball is directed to a rapidly flowing stream which carries it to a metal cage which re-directs it into a tube and back onto the course. Lunch at neighboring Pizza Hut and back on the road.

We're traveling north on NM 48 within the Lincoln National Forest and heading for Capitan, a village of 1400 people nestled between the Sacramento and Capitan mtns. This is gorgeous country. The White Mountain wilderness includes Alto lake and Alto resort, and Bonito lake and its resort. We are in the middle of nowhere and you'll need to squint to find these places on your triple-A map. The terrain levels out and placards describe the place, Capitan Gap, where the famous fire raged.

In May 1950 a cigarette butt started a 17,000 acre fire in these parts. A fire crew found a badly singed bear cub on May 9th and named him "Hotfoot". He was taken to Sante Fe for treatment. Prior to the discovery of this bear in 1944, the Forest Service had authorized the use of a poster by artist Rudolph Wendelin depicting "Smokey Bear". The bear cub was quickly named Smokey the Bear and was flown to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. on July 1950 as a national symbol. Congress passed a law in 1952 governing the commercialization of the name and image of Smokey Bear. Smokey even needed his own zip code for the volume of mail he received. New Mexico made the black bear the state animal. Capitan built a museum and park for Smokey (which we saw). Smokey's fame grew such that in 1984 he was the only individual animal honored on a U.S. postage stamp. School children across the country were quizzed to finish slogans when given only the first few words. The most recognized slogan was ONLY YOU.......CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES

Bears live 15 years in the wild, but Smokey lived for 26. Upon his death in 1976, at the urging of his many friends, his body was returned to his beautiful and beloved Capitan Mountains. It is here he now rests in eternal peace, buried in a small park which bears his name; in the heart of the Village of Capitan and in the shadows of the mountains where it all began.

We turn east on 380 and travel along the Capitan mtns, which are unique in running east-west rather that north-south. This is Lincoln County, and despite the absence of civilization, it has a long and rich history. In 1540 the first of the Spanish Conquistadores claimed this land for Spain and was part of the old Spanish Mexico until 1821. It became a U.S. territory in 1846 and a State in 1912. We pass a sign to Fort Stanton, established as a frontier outpost in 1855 to defend settlers from the Apaches. The area had mines, grazing, trappers, and ranchers. Despite the green pastures and quiet valleys, most enterprises were unsuccessful. Mines were closed, railroad tracks pulled up for iron scrap, and people left.

Within this area is the town of Lincoln. No one lives here, it is strictly a street of structures designed as a museum celebrating the old west and Billy the Kid. After the Lincoln County War, the lawless elements brought in to fight were loosed on the citizens. Billy became leader of his own band of cattle and horse rustlers. He was captured and sentenced to hang in Lincoln, but shot 2 guards in the Lincoln Courthouse on April 1881. Me and the kids walked some of the town and saw the courthouse. Can't say we were impressed. A picture of the Kid made him look kind of ordinary for his times. My kids were more interested in getting ice cream and made me drive to the end of town where they had seen a sign Old Curry Saloon and Ice Cream Parlor. I laughed, said it was one of the museum buildings and let them go in by themselves. They returned laughing at me, seems a woman had turned it into a real ice cream parlor, to be officially opened tomorrow, but sold my kids ice cream cones today.