Billy the Kid Scenic Byway - Ruidoso NM

The Billy the Kid Scenic Byway is a loop of about 50 miles in Lincoln Co. New Mexico.  There is a visitor center in Ruidoso.  We like to make a visitor center one of our first stops before we start see the sights in an area.  Frequently, our timing is off and the visitor centers are closed.  We left so early in the morning to do this loop we didn't have a lot information on what to see and where to stop.  We missed a few interesting things, but it was still interesting.  We stopped at the visitor center at the end of our day and it was very nice.  We loved the mosaic design on the outside.

The drive itself is through hills and mountains (up to 12,000 ft Sierra Blanca) with a lot of trees.  We didn't see a lot of Billy the Kid references along the way.  Lincoln is on the National Register of Historic Places.  We opted not pay $8 each to go in the museum and there was very little else to see there.

We did take the 10 mile detour off the byway to visit Fort Stanton.  There is a pretty cool museum there (it's free:).  There were lots of old photos of the fort and the people - I love to look at old photos.  After it was decommissioned as a military fort, Fort Stanton became a US Merchant Marine hospital for tuverculosis patients.  It was worth the side trip, it's a very pleasant place to visit.  We also found a geocache while we were there.