Next morning I returned to the flatbed Ford to get some daylight shots. At this hour I didn’t see the owners. Even here, where folks retire early and rise the same way, there was no one else on the street. Viewing my photographs, people often remark on the absence of people. With very few exceptions, it’s as though I’m the only person left on the planet, they say. Not so. There are usually people around. I just wait ‘till they’re out of shot. But on this morning I didn’t need to.

Today I was on the move, heading east into New Mexico. My final destination was San Patricio, between Ruidoso and Roswell on Federal Highway 70. A rough calculation showed it to be around 300 miles. I’d decided not use Interstates, preferring State and Federal roads. It would take longer, but I had all day and was in no hurry. By 10am I’d had breakfast, checked out and was on the road driving towards Holbrook. Once there, I’d leave the I-40 and take the 180, passing south of the Petrified Forest in a south-easterly direction.

4 wigwams
The Wigwam Motel

Holbrook, around 30 miles from Winslow, had also been a Route 66 town. There remains a relic from those days that’s worth pulling off the Interstate to see: the Wigwam Motel. Happily the business is still a going concern and it remains possible to spend the night cosily tucked up in a wigwam. These are not made from buffalo hide, but concrete. Each wigwam comes with its own historic automobile from the 66 years parked out front. Alas, these are strictly for show, not driving, but add to the charm of the place nonetheless.

A few photographs later, I was back en route. I bypassed the Petrified Forest, having done it when I came through some years ago. The trees are fossilised stumps and fallen trunks from a time when the surrounding desert was a forest. Difficult to imagine now, but with global warming, something that any surviving generations could be saying about our current woodlands and forests, when all that remains are turned-to-stone relics scattered on the ground. That’s if they’re not under the sea. From this site, it’s now possible to see the peaks of the San Francisco Mountains, 80 miles distant at Flagstaff, when once, the view would have been obscured by trees.

Highway 180 was, as I’d hoped, virtually deserted. I drove for mile upon mile with no vehicle in vision, front or rear. Something, that even on our remotest roads back home, is now unachievable for an equivalent length of time. This didn’t change when I switched to Highway 60. It was quieter.

Two-way
Two-way

Arriving at Springerville, close to the Arizona, New Mexico border, I stopped for lunch at a family restaurant, an obvious favourite with the locals. Like myself, the clientele were mostly seniors, taking advantage of generous portions at reasonable prices. I’d have qualified for being called junior in their company. Or stranger. Or the English guy. As it turned out, no-one had call to call me anything. Everyone was too busy eating.

Later that afternoon I passed through Pie Town NM. It was closed. That is, the restaurant from which the town drew its name was closed. The speciality? Why pies of course. According to the hand-written note on the door, the owners had gone for what was probably a well-earned vacation. Everyone needs a rest from pies now and again. The word had got around, as I was the only living thing in sight: human, animal or reptile. Although, taking advice from those that know, I didn’t walk through the long grass to put the presence of the final category to the test. Rattlers! There may have been birds in the air, but I didn’t look up. Too busy avoiding the long grass.

Pie Town
Pie Town

From Pie Town I struck out for my destination, as fast as the law and my matronly Nissan would allow me. The day was slipping away and I wanted to reach my destination before nightfall, as I had a hunch that my accommodation could be tricky to find in the dark. By the time I drove through Lincoln, the daylight was hanging on by its fingernails.

It’s hard to believe that Lincoln, now resembling a sleepy village in deepest rural Sussex, was once the scene of bloody murder and revenge. For it was here, on these now deserted streets, that a bitter war was waged between two local cattle barons. What became known as The Lincoln County War raged from 1878 to 1881. A notable combatant on the side of Englishman John Tunstall - who was murdered by members of the rival faction - was William Henry McCarty, more commonly known as Billy The Kid. It was not until his death in 1881, killed by a posse led by Pat Garrett, that the events of previous four years were finally laid to rest. McCarty is buried in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

My misgivings about locating the cottage in which I would spend the next two nights were justified. I was to pick up the keys at a gallery, owned by my host. I hadn’t realised that New Mexico time was an hour ahead of Arizona time. The gallery had closed for the day. I spent the following half hour trying to find the place with only the vaguest of written directions. I alarmed several households by pulling up, headlights blazing, into their front yards. Before they had time to return to the porch with a shotgun I had shot off, tyres spinning, faster than Billy The Kid with the a posse of deputies on his trail. Luckily the host had guessed I could be lost and come out to look for me. Found and following a meal at a local restaurant, I was soon safely tucked up for the night, dreaming of empty pies, flaming roads, concrete gangs and outlaw wigwams.