Billy was here

Messilla, New Mexico

Mrs. Phred and I played our first tennis in four months yesterday. My right wrist has been hurting all that time. I finally gave up waiting for it to heal and just used the wrist brace the ortho doctor gave me. I don't have a backhand because I'm ambidextrous and just switch hands when the ball is on my left, so some of my best shots are on that side now.

From the Messilla blog:

Billy was captured December 23, 1880.

On March 28, 1881, he was transported to Rincon by train and from there to Mesilla by wagon for trial for the murders of Andrew “Buckshot” Roberts and Sheriff William Brady. The indictment for killing Roberts was a federal indictment. The indictment for killing Brady was a territorial indictment. The territorial district court handled both jurisdictions, with the federal cases tried first.

His trial for killing “Buckshot” Roberts began on March 30, 1881. The case against him in this trial was thrown-out on the grounds that the killing took place on private land, not public land, and the federal government thus had no standing to prosecute.

The trial for the killing of Sheriff Brady began April 8. The judge presiding, Judge Bristol, dismissed Billy’s defense attorney from the Roberts trial, probably because of the change in jurisdiction, and appointed John D. Bail and Albert Fountain to represent him.

On April 13. the jury brought in its verdict: guilty. The judge then sentenced Billy to death by hanging, to be carried out on May 13, 1881 in Lincoln, New Mexico.


Three days later he was taken to Lincoln. It was from the Lincoln courthouse that Billy escaped on April 28, killing two deputies.

We went into Mesilla in the afternoon for lunch. Mesilla was a stop on the Butterfield stage line and  the Pony Express.

The building below is the courthouse where Billy was tried. It's a gift shop now. The wind was gusting to 60 MPH and our food kept blowing off the table.

Mesilla was the territorial capital of the Arizona and New Mexico. A lot of the old adobe buildings are still here.The sandstorm closed a number of highways in New Mexico because of zero visibility.
 

Our RV is full of very fine grit.

We have a reservation at the the Double Eagle tonight at 7PM for their award winning margaritas and steaks. Maybe more tennis and a movie.

Big Bend National Park

Las Cruces, New Mexico

The trip though the Big Bend was a  little disappointing because the cactus plants were not in bloom quite yet and because all the pictures we took mysteriously disappeared.

I've stolen some Big Bend cactus flowers off the internet for your amusement. You can imagine that I might have taken them in a week or two.

We picked up a young French hitchhiker named Damien and took him to the Chiros section of Big Bend. Mrs Phred said "No" when I asked her if I could pick him up, but I stopped anyway. He was about 20 and taking buses and hitchhiking though America in three weeks. He had been to New York City, Miami and Lafayette Louisiana. Somehow he had focused on Big Bend and wanted to hike up and camp at a high peak. 

 I  admire Damien's spirit. When I was his age the US Air Force was giving me an excellent free tour of the Pacific: Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Wake Island, Midway, Taiwan, Hawaii, Guam, etc.

We really like the little RV park in Marathon on US 90 about 80 miles north of the Big Bend National Park. This morning we drove 300 miles to Las Cruces which has many attractions and activities. We might be here five days before moving on to Arizona.

The "Double Eagle" restaurant  in Mesilla has the world's best Margaritas. I should know. They also serve a mean steak.

Back in the Big Bend

Marathon, Texas

We've been hustling though Texas from East to West for three days. 200 miles on day one, 300 the next day and 400 today. We still have 300 to go before we emerge to New Mexico. It's a big state.

These pictures are five years old almost to the day. That was the last time we visited Big Bend. Probably not much has changed since then.

We'll be taking new pictures of the Big Bend National Park in the morning. It appears possible that all the 400 plus National Parks, National Monuments and National Historic sites will close down Saturday due to failure of the US Government to pass a budget for the year that is now half over..

Yesterday we had dinner 400 miles East in Killeen, Texas with my niece and two grand nieces.. That's the home of Fort Hood where the unbalanced Muslim Major psychiatrist decided to shoot 33 of his fellow soldiers. Apparently he had been throwing signals for years but none of his superiors had the balls to deal with an unbalanced Muslim for fear of being considered a bigot.

So...Next stop Las Cruces...The world's best margaritas in the Silver Dollar in Mesilla, hangout of Billy the Kid and former capital of the combined territories of what now are New Mexico and Arizona..

You're not from around here, are you?

Touchet's Roadhouse, Abbeville, Louisiana

We're back at Betty's RV Park. It has been rated as the best small RV park in America. Betty has about 15 spots and it can be hard to get one. Betty make the experience. She runs a daily social hour that lasts three or four hours. The guests share appetizers and drink wine.




Betty guides you to local restaurants and musical venues of Cajun or Zydeco music. She suggests tours of craw fish farms, hot sauce factories or things like the drilling rig museum down in Morgan City where my best friend, Big Kenny, lies in an unmarked  pauper's grave.

 Zydeco and Cajun music are different. It's mostly a matter of race and instrument preference. The black Louisiana Creoles tend to prefer the piano accordion and eschew the fiddle. The Cajun prefer the fiddle and go for things like the steel guitar and amplified instruments. The jam session today was all white with lots of accordions, a fiddle and several amplified electric guitars. I'm not sure what it was, but it was happy music with a Cajun flair for a friendly crowd.



I still want to eat some craw fish (and suck the heads) and play some tennis before we move on Monday to San Antonio. There is an old, abandoned  Masonic cemetery we want to visit and photograph.



This area has 186,000 acres of craw fish farms that yield a product worth $121 million a year. You have to read the labels to make sure you're getting the real thing instead of a Chinese product with a Louisiana sounding name like Thibidues's or Boudin's.

The House of the Rising Sun

New Orleans

Now the only thing a rambler needs
Is an RV and a gun
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a run

This is one of Jim's old guitars in a store window. They only wanted $55,000 for it. If you've been following my blog for awhile, you must know by now that I was Jim Morrison before I faked my death in Paris back in 1972 and moved to Tampa under an assumed name to become a CPA.

Past the touristy areas of the French Quarter you wander into the ancient residential areas. Looking at the bases of the homes, there was no sign that the water had lapped up here during Katrina..

We found an entertainment area on Frenchmen Street just outside the quarter. It was lined with places that play music. Most of them opened somewhere between 7 PM an 10 PM. One building at the end of the street has a sign describing the execution of six Frenchmen by the Spanish Governor in 1769.

We stopped in the courtyard of the Mojita for the Pinot Grigio and little plates of tapas (excuse the redundancy). This one was crab and avocado drizzled with garlic and melted cheese. They also had deviled quail eggs and grilled gator tail sausages, but we wanted to save room for dinner.

We wandered on though the French Market near the Mississippi River. They had some cool voodoo dolls, gator heads and feather masks.

Outside the market is a golden statue of Joan of Arc on a golden horse. Apparently she was 19 when she died. The statue was a 1991 gift from the citizens of France to the City of New Orleans.

Mrs. Phred shopped for shoes in St. Charles Square. Nothing kills the blues like a new pair of shoes. They had nothing that fit her feet.

I talked to some colorful residents on a park bench while she shopped.

Mrs. Phred led me to the other side of the Quarter to a place called Tommy's Cuisine. The veal picata was covered with crab pieces. Mrs. Phred had some really disgusting sweetbreads. The waiter asked her if she really knew what they were...Ugh! Gag me with a spoon!

It is a great place to visit. I could live here. We spent about seven hours of walking the streets of NOLA, listening to music and eating fine chow. What a place.