Day 6: Lincoln County and Billy, the Kid (New Mexico)

And so it came to happen that on that 6 of our US coast-to-coast roadtrip Part II we were destined to immerse into that vast land Hollywood calls the Wild West. This is the place of all the cowboys, desperados, outlaws and sheriffs that people our imagery of the Old West. We all know the Wyatt Earps and Butch Cassidys of legendary stature but maybe no other name says infamous cowboy more than that of Billy, the Kid.
Pardon my ignorance but I always assumed Billy, the Kid had to do with Texas. No, Sir. It is New Mexico. Since we were in New mexico driving north from the Carlsbad Caverns why not go to Lincoln County, the stage of the Kid's lawlessness?
Mind you, this is no Tesla land so don't expect Teslaness, EVness or any other of that electric mobilityness.

Turns out Lincoln County is not the prairie kind of landscape I had imagined (I'm starting to think we shouldn't believe everything Hollywood tells us to believe). It's hilly, cool, almost alpine country. No cacti, no desert wastelands. What's left of old Lincoln County is hardly recognisable as something out of a cowboy movie. Again, we find ourselves in another tourist attraction. There's only one street and little is left of the days when Billy, the Kid made his way to legend. Still there, however, is the old county courthouse where he was imprisoned and from where he escaped.
I was curious about the place and, when it was time to get in the car and move on, I couldn't help but think how Lincoln County must have been a dangerous and hard place where to live and how the face of a common 19th-century bandit is now on t-shirts and fridge magnets. Time really has a way of twisting things...