We got an early start and headed to Lincoln, New Mexico, home of "Billy the Kid" and the Lincoln County War. What a wonderfully preserved
living "ghost" town. You really feel like you are in 1878 (except for the huge Monaco Diplomat parked along side the road). We watched a movie on the history of Lincoln and William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid. We then went through one of the many buildings open to the public. This was a museum that had fabulous artifacts of Apache and Western history. We learned a lot there, but that was just the beginning.
Let me back up, yesterday when I was reading to the kids about Lincoln,
I read about a historian/cowboy who was the expert on this area. He has been on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and every other show about Billy the Kid and Western history, he has also written many books about the area. Well when we left the museum we saw this large group of New Mexico officials. In this group I heard someone say Drew Gomber. I immediately recognized his name and told Dave we need to see if we can sneak into his tour. Well, we got to talking to him and were invited to join the tour. All you history buffs must be jealous because it was a great tour and we learned so much. Gomber was also very humorous which kept the kid's interest. If you know nothing about Billy here is a quick synopsis... We don't know exactly when Billy was born, nor do we know his exact age when he died (experts think he was around 21). We do know that a citizen's war broke out in Lincoln over mercantile. You see, Murphy/Dolan had the Mercantile monopoly in Lincoln and wanted to keep it that way. Tunstall, a young English man, decided to open his own general store in 1877. This did not go over well and Tunstall was murdered in 1878. Well, this started the Lincoln County War. One of Tunstall's employees was Billy the Kid. He and other Regulators didn't take Tunstall's death lightly. They shot the the sheriff (they should write a song about that) William J. Brady and deputy George Hindman. Billy was hit but escaped. Three days later they shot another Dolan defender. The Regulators came back to Lincoln and were held up in McSween's house which was next to the Tunstall merchant store (Drew said that they would have gone to the store but a family with children were in the store so they went next door, this was a mistake because the store has steel bullet proof plates in there doors and there wall's were too thick to shot thru. If they went there they could have been safe in there for a long time) . Well they were held up in McSween's house for 5 days. Meanwhile the Merchants set the house on fire. Billy and a few volunteers ran out of the house as a decoy and over 1,000 shots were fired at them. Only one of the four men died. McSween also died when he exited the house after the decoy party. Billy got away but once again returned to the neighboring area. Sheriff Pat Garette (who was hired to hunt down the Kid) eventually caught him and convicted him
for the death of William J. Brady (the funny thing was that their were 35+ regulators, and Brady had 12 bullet holes in him when he died, but Billy was the only one Garette was interested in hanging). Billy was sent back to Lincoln be hung in 1881. They placed Billy in the court house (which use to be the Murphy/Dolan store) with two deputies J.W Bell and Robert Ollinger and a few other prisoners. Billy said he had to use the outhouse and somehow got Bell's revolver (historian's debate on how he got it, Drew thinks he took down his escort and stole his gun) and shot him dead (you can still see the hole in the wall on the staircase). Ollinger was across the street with the other prisoners having dinner. He heard the shot and headed back to the courthouse.
Well, it was said that an ammunition room in the courthouse had a broken lock and Billy went in and took Ollinger's shotgun. He aimed it out the window of the courthouse and shot Ollinger in the street. He hopped (since he was still shackled) out on the deck of the courthouse and asked if anyone wanted to try and stop him (he was kinda the local hero so nobody did) so then he asked to borrow a horse and an pick. He sat for almost an hour and worked on his shackle and then mounted the horse and rode out of town singing. Drew said that Billy had quite the personality, he was kinda the life of the party. Billy was later found again by Garrett (he was at a neighboring city visiting his girlfriend) and this time Garrett didn't try to arrest him he just shot him down.Well, as you can see we really enjoyed the tour.
We then went to Roswell, NM and went to the UFO Museum and a few really cool stores. I won't go into the history of this city since I want to spend time playing a game with Sterling on his
birthday.
Anyway, it was interesting and I definitely have a theory on what happened in Roswell. I'm sure your interested, so ask me later.
Sterling wanted to go to a Chinese buffet for his birthday dinner.
We had a great dinner and headed to the Bottomless Lakes State Park. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice this park was. The kids played and went swimming in the lake and then we had ice cream cake in honor of Sterling's birthday.
Now the boys are watching a video of themselves and Parker doing a skit.
They are cracking up! What a great memory. What a busy and exciting day!
Posted by familydream (aka Cindi) accidently logged in as Dave (I'm not high tech enough to know how to fix it)
ught a Kachina doll from some very friendly Hopi women. Each doll has a history and the women told us about each doll that they or their family had painted. We bought the Grandmother Kachina, she supposedly, watches over the family and is given to a child at birth. We then walked around the ruins, in the rubble you could find a ton of old pottery pieces, it was really cool and I very much wanted to take a piece home with me, but you all will all be amazed to know that I followed the rules and left the pieces were their ancient ancestors left them (See I have Jr. Ranger potential). 
(could you imagine if you had kids! You would never sleep, or if you were a sleep walker...you would be a goner). Well the canyon
This is a great example of a Navajo pueblo (home) in the cliff wall. You can also see petroglyphs around the house. It is so cool knowing that people of another generation left their mark on the rock. I have so many pics it's hard to decide which ones to post (look at my pic post above). The walk back up was much harder than the walk down, but it is so well worth it. 
al monument. Our state park pass has really come in handy. Sunset Volcano last er
upted over 900 years ago, but the hardened lava flow still drapes itself down the mountain side like it just erupted. It is quite a site to see. It looks like a black, solid rock river below a 1,000 foot high Cinder Cone Volcano. We took a mile hike around the lava flow and the kids filled out their Jr. ranger booklets. They really are learning a lot from the J
r. Ranger activities. They now have 3 Jr. Ranger badges and patches. After they complete each program the ranger 
ural blow hole. This small 1' round opening in the ground shot out a cool wind 21 mph. The wind was so compact that the kids could drop their shoe and it would float up in the air. It is amazing how a small hole of wind can entertain 3 boys for hours. The interesting thing about this blow hole is that half the time it su
cks in the air and the other half it blows it out. Pretty cool! We are now parked at a campground in front of Meteor Crater outside of Winslow, Arizona (and yes when we get to Winslow we will stand on the corner "Standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona..Eagles). We miss you all! Thanks for the comments, we really do love getting them! The boys can't wait to see who posts.
. Tanner said he had seen pictures of the Canyon but had no idea it was so huge and impressive. They all absolutely loved it. It really does remind you of how amazing God is. He loves us so much that he created a place like the Grand Canyon for us to enjoy. He doesn't do anything half way! The first thing we did was pull up in front of the visitors center (I love visitor centers!) and we took a peek over the edge. The first look is the most incredible because you forget how spectacular it is. Not to mention, if you have never seen it before like our boys. Did you know the Grand Canyon is 18 miles wide, 5,000 ft deep and 227 miles long! (Had to throw those facts in because they are so impressive). After our peek, and my panicking because a lot of the canyon edge
s do not have rails and Peyton doesn't seem to have any fear of heights (we did learn that there have been around 600 accidental deaths at the canyon, most due to careless photographers who think the best picture is taken while hanging over the edge). We headed to the visitor center to get info and join the Jr. Rangers Program. If you didn't know, almost all the National Parks have a Jr. Rangers Program where kids do lessons in a workbook and attend a ranger class in exchange for a certificate, a badge, a patch and then officially sworn in as a Ranger. Then we headed out on the tram to the first look-out point. We truly enjoyed the view, but the kid
s were more impressed by the squirrels. The boys had a goldfish snack and the squirrels decided to share it with them (first Jr. Ranger rule...don't feed the animals). I ha
ve more pics I
will post with a squirrel sitting on Peytons
shoulder. We then went back on the bus and saw the canyon from many different angles (I think the Hopi point view was the best). We had a great ice cream lunch and then went to a ranger talk on Condors. Did you know that there are only 300 condors in the world and only 147 of them are living in the wild?! All of them are tagged and protected. The California Condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere. It's wing span is 9 ft!!! I got some great pictures of the condors flying overhead and perched on a rock. Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my friends from Get Motivated (Darren and family) were at the canyon at the same time. We met up with them to see the sunset over the canyon. What a great ending to the perfect day!
e top 10 scenic drives in the US) there was a river on one side with a backdrop of Red Rock formations on the other. There was also many beautiful green trees and plants which you do not see much of in Arizona. The second reason the drive was adventurous was all the turns and steep cliffs. We were in a huge RV with little RV experience (luckily Dave was driving or we would have for sure been dead). I have to say it was a little scary! (Pop, Scott and Bob you would have hated it). We ended up in Flagstaff and decided to call it a night at...where else? Walmart.
