Across The USA by Dodge
Chapter 15
New Mexico.
I drove out to a ghost town called Shakespeare via Lordsburg but you couldn't go into the old town as it was locked off to stop vandals. Next up was Silver City which is where William H Bonney was born. I had a map showing all the sites made famous by Billy the Kid but it wasn't that exciting as they'd all been demolished and were just vacant lots. I stopped at the cemetery and saw the grave of Katherine Antrim (Billy's mother). I don't know what the morbid fascination is with graves and cemeteries but they were clearly indicated on all the tourist maps.
The trip through Gila National Forest which is situated on the Mimbres Mountains was brilliant. There was a light mist and the landscape took on an ethereal quality. I saw some a herd of deer beside the winding road at one stage and pulled over to the side and took a couple of photos, their eyes were almost demonic as they peered at me through the mist, not that afraid but easy prey for some hunter willing to risk the heavy fines for shooting an animal in the National Forest.
I stayed overnight at a town called Truth or Consequences. That is an incredible name, don't you think? Only in America. The locals refer to it as T or C. It's named after a fifties radio show of the same name. One night the broadcaster said that if there was any town willing to change its name to Truth or Consequences he would do an anniversary show broadcast from there. This town, formerly called Hot Springs (real exciting name), did!
One amusing thing in T or C is a drive-in diner called Sonic which is straight out of the fifties (like on "Happy Days"). You drive up to a booth, place your order and a girl brings you out your hamburger, fries and coke on a tray which you hook onto your car door.
"Gunfight at the OK Corral" was on TV that night which was kind of spooky as I'd just been to Tombstone that morning.
Thursday July 23rd, 1992
I woke fairly early and drove out to Elephant Butte Dam on the Rio Grande to have a look then went on to Las Cruces before heading to El Paso which is one of the few places I didn't like ... I didn't get mugged or anything like that but it just seemed such a grotty town with nothing much going for it. The traffic was nightmarish and the streets didn't run in grids like most American cities, but seemed more like inner city Sydney where streets runs at all angles, are narrow and one way. El Paso does have the Concordia Cemetery which is where John Wesley Hardin is buried. I went to the El Paso Museum of History which was OK.
Keeping the spooky mood going one of my favourite movies, "The Hitcher" was on TV that night. Eerily it concerns a person driving across Texas and being attacked by a psychopathic killer. Guess where I was going to be driving the very next morning!
Chapter 16
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