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“"Over there is Wagon Mound, the old Red Light District of the Fort"” |
Considering the maps were not offering accurate paths for the roads I would be following- no road that covers the up, over, and down of a mountain doesn't snake- I wasn't sure if I would stay in Cimarron that night or not. That's always a fun part of the trip. I tend to eat dinner where I stop to sleep, and that means I don't often drive into the night.
Anyway, right after Taos I happened upon a very windy road that followed a little river, passed some horse farms, a cattle farm or two, and more artist's retreats before going head on into the mountains.
The drive to Cimarron only took an hour or so, but it contained more hairpin turns than I have ever slowed for in one day, let alone an hour. There was even a point near the bottom of one peak in the Kit Carson Forest that I felt a twinge of motion sickness.
Nevertheless, I gaily continued, up and down, around and over, listening to Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town album. The thick forest weighed down with snow around me reminded me of home, despite the snow painted red with dirt rather than brown. That was quite a favorable change in winter driving scenery than I'm used to.
After the snaking I entered some flatland and drove much faster for a while, happy I was the only one going in this direction, not the least bit concerned whether there was a good reason for this. As the land does out here, a random canyon fell away from one prairie, while even more snowcapped peaks appeared in the dark distance. I was in driving heaven!
The main attraction for me in Cimarron was the St. James Hotel, a historically preserved lodging that is so interesting it has its own museum. How, I wondered, did this little town get a write-up in a couple of my books, when it doesn't even take advantage of its remote beauty with spas like the rest of the remote scenic towns in the country. Well, the hotel really is that special. Not only does it have a ghost in room 18 (I'm finding that when you stay in an old hotel in this part of the country, there's bound to be at least one ghost, so many people died back then), and boasts the murder of two cowboys in room 6, but, wait for it, this was a favorite stop for: Buffalo Bill, Jesse James (the coward Robert Ford slept in the adjacent room), Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Annie Oakley, and Clay Allison. There are gunshot holes in the saloon ceiling from, well, probably lots of cowboys shooting the ceiling.
What is it that enabled filmmakers to romanticize cowboys? I'm sorry to say that I missed the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alamogordo, so I'm right where y'all are when it comes to solving that query, but I expect it has something to do with lawless gunslinging, heists, horses, whores, and a rare devotion to said crafts.
I took some pictures, but decided not to stay, considering how close I was to Las Vegas, where real people still live. At this point in the drive, as I meandered south and a little west, the mountains fell back and I was in the grasslands. Cimarron's town motto goes something like "where the prairie and the mountains meet," and it is correct. The flat yellowness reminded me of Nebraska. I kind of wanted a burger with a stuffed jackalope staring down at me from its display.
A few miles down the road I intended to visit the Fort Union National Monument on the old Santa Fe trail, but read it had just closed. Having no idea what history the monument preserved, but hoping it was a fortress of some cowboys for storing bounty, instead of a facility for the boring legal trades for which the trail was also used, I pressed on. Figuring I could at least walk up to the monument after hours, it seemed like a worthy diversion. The Lady also generously displayed the old Santa Fe trail on her screen (which I refer to as her eyes) which allowed me to hazardously watch the preserved wagon ruts along the road I sped down. A ranger was closing the gate (about a half mile from the actual (rebuilt) fort, but pulled over to grab me a brochure. He was disappointed, they close early this time of year he said, because there are so few visitors, but "here we are keeping you out, you would have been our only visitor all day." He said to watch for the ruts even down highway 25, which uses the old route as a guide, and then pointed in the direction of Wagon Mound, and told me that used to be the old Red Light District for the Fort. Fitting.
What I learned about the Santa Fe Trail and Fort Union: Fort Union was a military and trading post set up in the 19th century and is very boring, as history goes. The Monument facility is used more as a center for information on the Santa Fe Trail. The Santa Fe Trail, sadly, is of little more interest to the typical Western enthusiast. The trade route was used during the Mexican American war- as it had facilitated trade between the two regions before- to gain lands for growing America. Once railroads were introduced, the route was a vein of commercialism, encouraging Americans to Go West and settle.
After that little diversion I headed for Las Vegas and the sleepy old Plaza Hotel.
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