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Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Working monastery offers simple brick and white rooms and surreal silence. 505-545-8567; www.christdesert.org; 14 miles south on FR 151, NM; r $90-145;

Rio Chama Campground

Riverside camping with nine tent-only site surrounded by brilliant colored cliffs, birds and the silence of the Chama River Canyon Wilderness. 12 miles south on FR 151, NM; tent site free; May-Nov 15;

USEFUL WEBSITES

www.publiclands.org

www.santafe.org.com

LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner

TRIP

37 48 Hours in Santa Fe

45 Farm to Table: Organic New Mexico

49 Hiking the Jemez

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Billy the Kid Byway

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WHY GO America’s legendary bad boy, Billy the Kid, may have blazed this trail in a rain of bullets, but he isn’t the only headliner on his byway. He shares pavement with America’s most beloved bear, Smokey, who also hails from this region of brilliant light, bucolic emerald woods and a distinct cowboy culture.

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TIME

4 days

DISTANCE

87 miles

BEST TIME TO GO

Jul – Oct

START

Ruidoso, NM

END

Ruidoso, NM

ALSO GOOD FOR

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From grassy plains to cool mountains to million-acre forest in between, the Billy the Kid Byway follows the outlaw’s blood-stained footsteps around 87 miles of stunning southeastern New Mexican scenery. Although drivable year-round, this route is most magnificent during the short fall foliage season – usually mid-September – when the trees in the Lincoln Forest appear as a blazing fire of orange, crimson and canary. Those in search of quirky regional festivals will enjoy driving this byway between May and October when everyone from Billy to Smokey is given a celebration somewhere.

So who was this Billy the Kid anyway? The truth is no one totally knows. So much speculation swirls. Even the most basic information about Billy the Kid tends to cast a shadow larger than the outlaw himself. Here’s what we do know. The Kid didn’t start out as a murderer. His first known childhood crimes included stealing laundry. All that changed after 1878, when a wild teenager named Henry McCarty, alias William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid arrived in Lincoln about the time the town erupted into all-out war over control of the dry-goods business.

Tangled up in the thick of the action the Kid was captured or cornered a number of times but managed brazen and lucky escapes before finally being shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett near Fort Sumner in 1881, where he lies in a grave in a barren yard. Maybe. Enough controversy still dangles over whether Billy conspired with Sheriff Garrett to fake his death that there is a movement afoot to exhume the body and do a little DNA testing. Visit during the first full weekend of August and you’ll experience this town of 70 residents’ biggest show of the year, Old Lincoln Days. Now in its sixth decade, the two-day festival features musicians and mountain men, doctors and desperadoes wander the streets in period costume, and there are demonstrations of spinning, blacksmithing and other common frontier skills. In the evening there is the folk pageant, “The Last Escape of Billy the Kid.”

This trip starts in ritzy Ruidoso. A favorite with the Texan crowd who come for skiing on New Mexico’s highest peak – nearby Sierra Blanca which tops out 3ft shy of 12,000 feet – and for the horseracing in the summer. Plus the town – its name means “noisy” in Spanish (referring to the lovely bubbling of the small Rio Ruidoso creek running through town) – has a fabulous climate thanks to its lofty location in the Sacramento Mountains at the edge of the Lincoln Forest. The Billy the Kid Interpretive Center features a mini-tour of the byway, and is a good place to get your bearings for the road trip ahead. Look down, there’s a very colorful map painted on the gallery floor! The visitor center is located just east of Ruidoso in Ruidoso Downs (where the racetrack also is). Mosey across the street when you are done and