Day 5 - Thursday, Sept 28 - Roswell, NM to Lordsburg, NM
Starting mileage: 2030 Starting time: 8:30 am
Ending mileage: 2449 Ending time: 9:00 pm
Travel mileage: 419 Travel time: 12:30 hours
Our first stop was the International UFO museum. It is mainly based on the July 1947 report of a UFO crash near Roswell, the reported finding of 3 dead aliens and one surviving alien that was completely covered up by the Air Force. It is hard to know what to believe as there are numerous affidavits by people who viewed aspects of this and newspaper articles from the time. The Air Force continues to state that nothing of the sort occurred. There are also numerous reports of people who were abducted by aliens...
The drive down to Carlsbad is pretty desolate, mainly scrub brush and some very dry grass. There are huge ranches and one can see beef cattle grazing although it is hard to imagine what they find to eat. There is also a sprinkling of pump-jacks bringing oil up although it is no longer a large oil-producing region.
On the way we saw a roadrunner (bird) running across the road, looking just like in the cartoons, very peculiar. There are also small mule deer, considerably smaller than the white-tail deer we have in New York.
The road to the Carlsbad Caverns winds up canyons to the top of a ridge in the Guadalupe Mountains, part of an ancient ocean reef. The entrance to the caverns is near the top of the mountain and descends down over 800 feet. There is normally an elevator from the visitor center that goes down to the main room but the elevator was out of operation this week. There is a winding path over a mile long that goes from the natural entrance to the main room. The mile-long loop around the main room is truly spectacular. The walk back up was pretty grueling, taking an hour. My Fitbit reported that we went up 89 flights of stairs! Overall it was a great experience and something I had wanted to do since I was a child.
Leaving the caverns are a warning sign that the next gas is 145 miles away - fortunately we still had plenty of gas. One doesn't realize how high up the terrain is until you come to the edge of the high plateau and look far down below. The road descends very steeply. Looking back from the bottom, there is a beautiful view of the Guadalupe Mountains, slightly obscured by the clouds that hang around the summits.
We travelled through Texas to El Paso and then crossed back into New Mexico near Los Cruces where we had a delicious dinner at a small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant recommended by TripAdvisor. There was a spectacular red sunset silhouetting the mountains in the distance. For over an hour there was intense lightening in the clouds to the south of our route along I-10.
We stopped at another Comfort Inn at Lordsburg, NM.
Ending mileage: 2449 Ending time: 9:00 pm
Travel mileage: 419 Travel time: 12:30 hours
Our first stop was the International UFO museum. It is mainly based on the July 1947 report of a UFO crash near Roswell, the reported finding of 3 dead aliens and one surviving alien that was completely covered up by the Air Force. It is hard to know what to believe as there are numerous affidavits by people who viewed aspects of this and newspaper articles from the time. The Air Force continues to state that nothing of the sort occurred. There are also numerous reports of people who were abducted by aliens...
The drive down to Carlsbad is pretty desolate, mainly scrub brush and some very dry grass. There are huge ranches and one can see beef cattle grazing although it is hard to imagine what they find to eat. There is also a sprinkling of pump-jacks bringing oil up although it is no longer a large oil-producing region.
On the way we saw a roadrunner (bird) running across the road, looking just like in the cartoons, very peculiar. There are also small mule deer, considerably smaller than the white-tail deer we have in New York.
The road to the Carlsbad Caverns winds up canyons to the top of a ridge in the Guadalupe Mountains, part of an ancient ocean reef. The entrance to the caverns is near the top of the mountain and descends down over 800 feet. There is normally an elevator from the visitor center that goes down to the main room but the elevator was out of operation this week. There is a winding path over a mile long that goes from the natural entrance to the main room. The mile-long loop around the main room is truly spectacular. The walk back up was pretty grueling, taking an hour. My Fitbit reported that we went up 89 flights of stairs! Overall it was a great experience and something I had wanted to do since I was a child.
Leaving the caverns are a warning sign that the next gas is 145 miles away - fortunately we still had plenty of gas. One doesn't realize how high up the terrain is until you come to the edge of the high plateau and look far down below. The road descends very steeply. Looking back from the bottom, there is a beautiful view of the Guadalupe Mountains, slightly obscured by the clouds that hang around the summits.
We travelled through Texas to El Paso and then crossed back into New Mexico near Los Cruces where we had a delicious dinner at a small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant recommended by TripAdvisor. There was a spectacular red sunset silhouetting the mountains in the distance. For over an hour there was intense lightening in the clouds to the south of our route along I-10.
We stopped at another Comfort Inn at Lordsburg, NM.
More alien friends at UFO museum
Natural entrance to Carlsbad Cavern
Looking back at the Guadalupe Mountains
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