Route 66 Trip, July 9

(Much of this written by Pete)

Another really good day - even the threatened rain held off no doubt because we put on our rain gear. We soon felt like boil in the bag chickens and peeled off at the first stop.

We had a look around the Santa Rosa car museum - another Route 66 stop-off with a stunning collection of cars, street rods and pick-ups restored and awaiting restoration. The Chevys were particularly good.

We decided to loop round through the town of Fort Sumner and visit the Fort Museum. This led to a wild goose chase involving a Billy the Kid Museum

but culminating in a visit to the New Mexico State Momument. This excellent museum, known as the Bosque Redondo, is a memorial to the Navajo and Mescalero Apache tribes who were imprisoned in what amounted to a concentration camp during the 1860s. It was a moving and enlightening experience.

The policy adopted is pretty clear from this plaque:

Fort Sumner was an attempt to force nomadic peoples to become farmers, as long as they farmed land the settlers were prepared to let them use.

The Old Fort Sumner Museum was mainly about Billy the Kid who just happened to have been killed years later on the same site. If ever you are in the area be sure to go to the Bosque Redondo and give other museums a miss...

We saw this sign at Clines Corners:

Then a long ride on fast straight roads through New Mexico ending in Santa Fe where Nell had arrived the previous evening. We are lodging tonight in Los Alamos of WW2 nuclear bomb fame. The next picture was taken on the ride between Santa Fe and Los Alamos.

Tomorrow we plan to revisit Santa Fe before getting back on the 66.

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