Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Apr 26, 2005

Roswell, NM

Filed in Landmark-Hunting, Motorcycle Road Trips, Raven's Roads 2005

I woke up to the sound of rain. Then there was thunder - and lightning - and thunder. The storm was right on top of us. Then there was louder rain, which turned out to be hail. Then there was the sound of cussing, as the other tent in our group threatened to float away. Two car door slams later, I knew that they had taken up residence in the car.

My tent turned out to be waterproof. (REI Camp Dome 2.)

After a while the call of nature called me, during which time I was thoroughly rained on. I then touched base in the car-camp, and we decided to give up gracefully and leave. Got entirely soaked while breaking camp. (*).

Some while later, we arrived in Ruidoso town, which is a bit of a tourist trap, but had a family-run Mexican restaurant, which helped us to warm up and caffeinate somewhat. ;-)

I fell asleep in the back as we headed to Roswell, waking up just before we got to the compulsory silly “I got to Roswell” photo shoot. (*)

In Roswell itself, we found the visitor centre and partook of heating which was on way too high, and their free internet machines, and the three snarfs within a stone’s throw. We were amused to see that everything is alien-decor - you can get alien crushed ice (*) or get an alien to break you out of jail (*) - even the lamp posts have little alien eyes painted on them, and I totally forgot to photograph those. My bad.

We went to the UFO incident museum. It was fascinating. They had copies of all the affidavits and eyewitness accounts from the day, including sworn affidavits of threats to family and friends…and the odd murder. The whole thing screamed “cover-up” and I was entirely convinced that something very, very odd went on there. After the timeline section was the stuff that muddied the waters and the archaeological digs; then photos of UFOS and crop circle, stuff about abductees and finally, to lighten it up, cartoons. This one made me laugh out loud. (*)

The museum and attached research library were supposed to have free wi-fi, but while I could connect to the library signal, I couldn’t use it to do anything useful, like post to my journal.

We were all pretty exhausted after a short night with little sleep, so we headed home. The landscape down there is incredibly boring, and I found myself deciding that there was no way I was going to bother to touch the Texas border if I had to ride through hundreds of miles of this stuff. We saw several antelope, which were not boring, and I got lunch at my first ever drive-in (Sonic, for the record).

Not far out of Roswell, where the sun had shown itself for the first time that day, we hit a huge storm (*) and were under it for at least a hundred miles, probably more. It was waiting for us when we got home, too…At one stage we drove under a funnel cloud. There was a lot of lightning, usually in the distance, and the atmosphere was oppressive and electrified at the same time, so I was going Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. We had rain and hail (*), and moments of being very disconcerted, but in the end we got beyond the worst of it.

We found several historical markers, including one where the frame was left and the sign was gone (*) which we figured must be for the nearby salt lake - another remnant of the time when this was all under the ocean. And later we got to see adobe brick, not covered by stucco, but by political signs. As it was a ruin, it kind of tickled our funny bones. (*)

And that’s it. I have now been to Roswell, New Mexico, a dream ever since I was a teenager. :-)

I am soooo glad I did not ride my motorcycle today. ;-)