April 17, 2009
The Bell-Mell Road Trip landed in Lincoln, New Mexico last night. Had a great dinner at the Wortley Hotel (they opened the dining room just for us, thanks to Sue Lambert at True West). Had the chicken chipolte tacos and a great cobbler for dessert. Gary bought.

This morning I took the boys on a walking tour of the deadliest street in America (I think Fred Nolan documented some 135 killings on this one street before, during and after the Lincoln County War). This meant we stopped every ten feet while I told who died there. Ha.

Also walked by a little ranchito on two-and-a-half acres on the east edge of town that I wanted to buy as a summer artist retreat back in the eighties. I could have bought the whole spread for $33,000. Couldn't quite swing it, plus Kathy wasn't overly thrilled with the location. It's for sale at $439,500. My, oh my, that would have been a nice little mark-up.

Ed, Gary and I have been noodling a name for our tour (we're going to have a big art show at the Overland Art Gallery in October featuring all of our resulting Billy the Kid artwork). One nomination is "The Deregulators" and Ed came up with "Country For Old Men" which we laughed about all across the Plains of San Augustine. Another nomination is "The Kid Krazy Art Tour" and "Mell And Bell Con Smith Into Kidland." Ha. Actually, this was all Gary's idea.

"Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm."
—Winston Churchill