Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Road Trippin'

Our spring break was last month for the kids so we decided to take a little road trip along old route 66.

We drove just about two hours out of Albuquerque to Ft. Sumner to pay our respects to William H.Bonney a.k.a. Billy the Kid's grave.

Prior to our trip we had them watch the film Young Guns to get up to speed on why Billy was so darn cool! lol Yes we have taught our children to love history through movies, just as we learned to love it!

Then we explored the charming little town of Santa Rosa, NM

Here are some great shots of our trip!





 In "Old Ft. Sumner" we visited the grave....


 We learned that they had to cage off the grave due to people chipping off souvenirs from the headstone.














 Then back in Ft.Sumner there is a cool Museum dedicated to Billy the Kid.
There was a great collection of items from the time period that he lived.





 Also a great replica of Billy the Kid's gravestone.




 My kiddos playing in the fun photo props outside of the museum, thought a little B&W editing would be appropriate!



















 Below is a photo of William H. Bonney at age 13! Pretty cool!



 A cool old Funeral Carriage. I just liked the way it looked HAD to photograph it!






Then we decided to stay the night in Santa Rosa and the next day we set out to explore the tiny but beautiful town!

They had the Route 66 emblem stamped into the concrete of the little downtown sidewalks.


 Beautiful downtown Santa Rosa, NM


 The beautiful courthouse building in Santa Rosa.




 Below is a photo of the Lake City Diner...OH MY GOSH was the food AMAZING there! Now go there expecting to wait because the food is all homemade style. Better than home made in my experience! LOL but the Ambiance is great, it was an old bank and they left the vault door on that now leads into the kitchen, the tin cieling tiles are original as well as the marble tile floor. There are photos of the original bank, the way it looked in the 1800's. Its TOO cool!

 Inside the Lake City Diner


 The glass above the door is all original! Its just gorgeous!


 We happened to find this gorgeous building the St. Rose of Lima church ruins. Circa 1800. Its just lovely!







 Then we wandered around and found the aptly name "Blue Hole"...


It is literally an 81 foot deep vertical cave filled with the clearest, bluest spring water that you have ever seen!

While I was shooting from the top with my family suddenly a little teenaged girl in a bikini jumped out in front of my camera and this is the shot I got, quite inadvertently, but nevertheless thrilling!



The same daredevil teenager swimming back to the stairs, the water is so clear you can see far below into the deep. 

 Brave divers lined the top of the ledges and we enjoyed watching them jump into the deep cold water and though it looks like a short drop from below, from up top it might as well be a jump off of an airplane...LOL



You can see by the lack of leaves on the trees that it wasn't quite spring yet, though 61 degrees outside the water felt like ice water when I dipped my foot into it, so there was no swimming for me! But maybe next time, in June or July preferably!

Well, Thanks for coming along on this photographic road trip! I hope you enjoyed the little bit of exploration of New Mexico. We are planning another trip soon, hope you'll come with!

xoxo
Gigi