Driving to Sweetwater, TX
10:34 am
Writing on June 24, 2011
We’re stuck in some stupid construction traffic in Carlsbad, New Mexico and there’s a fly in the car that we picked up from our campsite. Okay we’re finally getting a move on. Let’s discuss Santa Fe some more! I can’t tell you how cute this town is. Even though it is pretty touristy, there is still something so charming and unique about this place. We checked out of our hotel and headed straight for the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. The museum houses the largest collection of her works in the country, but unfortunately there were only a few specific pieces out—selected for this exhibit on photography and its influences on O’Keefe. Still, it was neat to see some of her paintings close up.
Then, we found a cute tex-mex restaurant in a courtyard and had—again—some ridiculously spicy food. Afterwards, we raced around town to get some shopping in. Teddy was a good sport about the fact that I really wanted to shop in New Mexico—especially Santa Fe for some of the best Native American crafts. It wasn’t too hard for him though—the shops were so adorable and “authentic”—he picked out some cool tiles for his new house on Long Island. For me, the best shopping was the big row of jewelry and art along the covered walkway at The Palace of the Governors. All the vendors sit at the side of the building—a whole city block long—with their work spread out before them.
I practiced my non-existent haggling skills with one toothless vendor. There were so many really old, adorable Native Americans selling their goods; some were chatting, others were reading—ours was passed out with his arms crossed over his enormous turquoise bolo. It was tough getting his attention at first, so we asked the younger man next to him to help us out. He jolted the sleeping vendor who immediately woke up with cartoonish confusion. The vendor started lisping out some prices through his two bottom teeth. I knew I was getting a hell of a deal for the absolutely stunning items he had crafted. I won’t tell you what they are, because I got one for my mom for Christmas. I don’t even know if I can wait that long to show her! I am the worst haggler because I had an affection for this old guy who created such unbelievable designs. Also, I knew this might be a real source of income for him. I brought him down five bucks J .
After stopping in some stunning old churches, it was time to leave and make it to Roswell before dark. I could have stayed all day in Santa Fe. I’ll bring more money next time.
10:53 am
98 Degrees F
Almost in Texas
We were so excited to get to Roswell and knew we only had a few hours to make it there before the UFO Research museum closed down at 5 pm. We hoofed it across the desert—it was a LONG road. Check out the pictures below of the mirages in the asphalt. Finally, we crossed into Roswell, the first town of over 100 people we had seen in hours. We knew we were there when we saw paintings, plastic figures, stickers and decorations of little green men all over the place. There is a great McDonald’s in the shape of a spaceship and there were some great signs like “Alien Wine and Beer Sold Here”.
We parked right outside the museum which was housed in an old theatre. Running to the front desk at 4:45, we were let in free of charge because of our tardiness. We were so grateful to get there on time, but we realized immediately that we had landed ourselves in an oversized grade school science project. Considering it was an alien museum, we shouldn’t have been so surprised of the crooked, peeling signs typed in Comic Sans and home made signs of saucers making crop circles. Everything was thumb-tacked on yellowing poster board. I’m sure if we had time to read the signs and exhibits, we would have gotten a better sense of interesting government conspiracy theories and so on—but instead, racing through the “museum”, we just cracked up. The gift shop was absurd and looked like the place at the arcade where you trade your tickets for pieces of crap. Oddly, it was strictly enforced that no pictures were to be take in the gift shop. Surprisingly, Teddy found an awesome sweatshirt and I found a pink alien lollipop. We were out of there in twenty minutes feeling, actually, completely satisfied.
I was shocked to discover that there were no alien-themed restaurants left in Roswell. What a waste. But, we ended up at a themed restaurant nonetheless—where, as Teddy puts it, the theme was “Local Hick Hangout”. Really, it was just a local, wild biker bar with neon signs, dirty country songs and flies. It kind of smelled like an eating club—aka beer soaked everything. It was all very “Pour Some Sugar on Me”—if you know what I mean. Needless to say, we stuck out at Farley’s.
It was time for our first night camping at Brantley State Park near Carlsbad, NM. We set up the tent and headed to the lake for a dip. I have a little, unwarranted fear of lakes and only got in up to my thighs (Hey, Bill! Look at me, I sort of did it!). As we were watching the sun set, Teddy went to lay something on our picnic table, jumped back quickly and says,
“There’s a big spider. AAANNNDDD it’s a black widow”.
This baby was huge! I’d say 2 inches long. I’d never seen one and was kind of thrilled and terrified all at the same time to spot the electric red hourglass on her belly. Teddy named her Lorena (after Lorena Bobbitt—who didn’t so much kill her husband as maim him, but it still seemed appropriate). We figured we might as well tell the camp host about Lorena—the rangers might have had a system of dealing with deadly things. We knocked on his door—he was sufficiently nonplussed to hear about the spider. “Thems spiders aren’t very thick ‘round here. If you see a rattlesnake, though, you let me know.” We went off to bed less afraid after researching Lorena’s kind and discovering that females rarely leave their web and only bite dumb humans who poke around in there.
