Day Fifteen -- Santa Rosa to Carlsbad, New Mexico

Well, as is so often said, you can't win them all. I say that because once again we're fighting a sub-standard, coma-producing slow internet here in the Carlsbad RV park. Not only is the internet slow but they have made no provisions for people with IPads which require a slightly different set of procedures to attach than lapstops. And yet we almost didn't get to stay here. We tried calling ahead, but got only a recorded message. I told their recorder that we were 60 miles away and wanted to stay the night. The recorder said they'd call back. They didn't. Sooooo, when we got here all the full service sites were spoken for and that means I'll have to use the dump station when I leave rather than be hooked up at the site. That I can live with, but slow (and sometimes slower than slow) internet is just not excusable. Nowadays you have to watch any of the KOAs because they use something called "Tengo" internet, short for "I have" in Spanish. In their dreams, I'd say. The last KOA at which we stayed definitely DIDN'T HAVE IT, "Tengo" or not. But our experience so far is that Good Sam recommended parks are pretty good. That was our experience until today.

But enough of that rant, let’s talk about today’s events. Between leaving Santa Rosa up on Route 40 this morning and our arriving at the "lousy internet" RV park here in Carlsbad we have been picking our way south down some of the most casually maintained roads in the country. But we didn't mind, even though we couldn't listen to our book on tape because the paved washboard road caused the tape player to skip. Still, that was okay because we got to visit the official Billy the Kid grave site and museum in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Though Billy the Kid has never been one of MY favorite old west miscreants, I have always wanted to visit the site of the Lincoln County War here in New Mexico. (By the way, that's Billy and me in the upper left)

Here’s what Wiki says about good ol’ Billy:

William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr. c. November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881), better known as Billy the Kid (also known as Henry Antrim) was a 19th-century Irish American gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier outlaw in the American Old West. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but it is generally believed that he killed between four and nine. He killed his first man in 1877 at the age of 17, although he could have been as young as 15.

McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5'8" tall with blue eyes, blond hair or dirty blond hair, and a smooth complexion. He was described as being friendly and personable at times, and as lithe as a cat. Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image as both a notorious outlaw and a folk hero.

Billy was relatively unknown during most of his lifetime but was catapulted into legend in 1881 when New Mexico's governor, Lew Wallace, placed a price on his head. In addition, the Las Vegas Gazette (Las Vegas, New Mexico) and the New York Sun carried stories about his exploits. Other newspapers followed suit. Several biographies written about Billy the Kid after his death portrayed him in varying lights.

If you want to read more, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_Kid

(By the way, that's the Kid murdering Robert Ollinger in photo #2)

Counting Down

This morning my computer's countdown clock says I have 2 months, 18 days, 6 hours, and a swiftly-decreasing number of minutes and seconds before my retirement day. I've spent much of the morning doing some packing in my office while keeping an eye out for my international driver's license, which I can't seem to find. Other than the license, everything is proceeding smoothly. We finally bought the GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 370, which comes complete with European and North American maps. We haven't tried to navigate ourselves yet, but Concetta says the little device is pretty easy and intuitive to use.

We finally have all the various passes that I had determined we needed. We have the Heritage Pass which supposedly gets you into 800 different castles, museums and historic houses throughout the UK. We have the pass that will allow us to ride the tube in London as well as the Red double-decker buses. We also have a pass that promises to gain us entrance to attractions in London not accessible with the Heritage pass.

Now, I'm researching the idea of joining "Globalbagtag.com," a company that issues metal tags for your bag that, if your bag goes astray, allows airline personnel to go to Global's web site and pull up your itinerary so they can see where you're supposed to be at any given time. Pretty neat if it works.

Obviously, with only a little less than three months to go before we leave, it's time to get serious and start checking off must-do items from the list. I think we're pretty far along, but seldom does a day go by when I don't think of something I've forgotten. Stay tunned.