Well, we're on our way home now and finally have brought this blog up to date.
We are currently at the Corral RV Park in Dalhart, Texas, north of Amarillo. We'll make it back to our little house on the prairie tomorrow.
Today was mainly driving, but we did stop twice in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, to visit the Billy the Kid Museum and Billy the Kid's gravesite. There seems to be some dispute about whether this is the actual site. (Not counting the continual speculation about whether that was REALLY Billy that Pat Garrett shot!)
The Museum contains information about Billy and some of the other influential folk of the area and involved in his legend, but much of the collection is a lot of donated "old stuff" that doesn't really have anything to do with the whole legend of Billy the Kid.
It is nice that future generations can see these kinds of items (everything from old cars and ice boxes to pottery and toys), but we felt it shouldn't be billed as the Billy the Kid Museum and then have all the other stuff. It would be much better if it was in a historical society museum or something.
The grave is several miles from town behind the Old Fort Sumner Museum.
We arrived here in Dalhart, got our site, and went to supper at Hodie's, a barbeque café. We like the food. When we were leaving, Kathy noticed a young girl whose T-shirt said "Schlesener" on the back. Since this was one of her best friends' name at Northern Heights High, Allen, Kansas, she decided to mention it. When we walked up to the family we noticed that the front of her T-shirt said "Herington" on it! I asked if they were from Kansas and sure enough they were! What a small world it is.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008 -- To Believe or Not To Believe...
Kathy greeting a neighbor at the RV park.
Our main goal for the day was to tour the UFO Museum. There is plenty to keep visitors busy for a long time because many of the displays consist of affidavits by individuals connected to the 1947 Roswell "incident" or official government reports or other communications. It takes a while to read these, if you are so inclined (Kathy usually is).
Quite frankly, both Chris and Kathy thought they made a good case for the view that something was really found at Roswell in 1947 that the government covered up. Actually newspaper reports from the daily paper vary from the first days when the Air Force actually announced that a "flying saucer" was found, etc. and then the story changed to a "weather balloon" was found.
We really enjoy this poster that was part of the exhibits!
Movies and other videos are shown all day in a small theater in the museum. We didn't take the time, but earlier in the morning they had shown the movie done by Showtime called Roswell: The U.F.O. Cover-Up. Some of the staff of the Museum told us it was the closest to the "real story". We'll have to get it and see it sometime.
After we had toured the museum, we went into the Research Library at the Museum. We had fun talking to the two staff members, Andrea and Karen. They are both fairly new to the Museum and to library/archive work and we did a little "consulting" from force of habit. They told us that working there begins to make you a believer.
Kathy checked out the Sightings database and copied some of the data for the sightings reported within the borders of the Central Kansas Library System. The towns included Beloit, Concordia, Delphos, Ellis, and Great Bend. Our original goal was to see what they had about the 1971 incident in Delphos, Kansas. They had citations to several books and articles that Chris photocopied. We are planning to share this with Sharon at Delphos Public Library, in case she doesn't have all this "local history" information. Some of the articles are about the soil analyses that were done in at the site near Delphos. The articles were in the Journal of UFO Studies.
We talked to one of the librarians about the TV series Roswell, which was our inspiration for going to Roswell this year. If you haven't seen it, we recommend it. Although it sounds totally science fiction, it's really about people and their relationships. When we discovered it was about a bunch of teenagers in Roswell (some of whom are alien/human hybrids) we didn't think it would be that appealing. But it hooked us and we watched the entire series. We also recently watched the mini-series, Taken, which also includes a lot during the whole Roswell incident era.
Karen told us that the nearby store called Starchild looked like the front of the Crashdown Cafe as portrayed in he TV series. Sure enough, it has the same flying saucer coming out of the building. However, she said the series was not shot in Roswell at all. The museum portrayed in the show, however, looks very much like the actual Museum's exterior.
We ran down the street to the Area 51 where you can take pictures with aliens, etc. (with your own camera!) It was fun and was just $2.00 each! here's a couple of our favorite photos.
We ate at Red Lobster for supper and then decided to take in a show at the local theater. They had eight films to choose from, but by the time we got there we were limited to one unless we wanted to wait a couple of hours. We watched Mummy 3. It was entertaining enough in the "over-the-top" sort of way and kind of a knock-off of the Indiana Jones movies. We prefer the Indiana Jones movies.
Tomorrow we head home to Kansas and plan to be in Great Bend on Sunday.
Wednesday and Thursday, August 27-28, 2008 Camping at Manzano to Roswell
At the Manzano campground, about 200 feet behind our camping van stands a flag pole with the US and New Mexico flags hanging limply from the top. Early in the morning Chris saw three hummingbirds checking out the red strips.
On my northwest trip several years ago, I was walking along a trail in the early morning. I was wearing a bright red jacket to protect against the chilly air. A hummingbird stopped and hovered about a foot from my chest. I stopped. He/she looked at me with one eye, then turned and looked at me with the other eye. Finally, probably after a mere 2.5 seconds, seeing no place to poke his/her beak to get nectar, he/she zipped away. Next time I come West I am going to wear only red shirts to attract the hummingbirds.
I took a short hike. I through my boomerang is a small clearing near the flagpole. Eventually, it landed twenty feet up in a pine tree. Fortunately, landscaping around the flagpole provided numerous throwing stones. Unfortunately, I don't throw rocks as accurately as I used to. One rock would go too high. So I would overcompensate and the next rock would go too low. One branch blocked several throws that might have liberated my boomerang. Eventually, after about 20 throws, I succeeded and my boomerang dropped free. That discouraged my boomerang throwing for the rest of the day.
During this trip I have been mulling over the idea of throwing boomerangs off cliffs. The idea of throwing sticks off cliffs and not losing them because they return might seem fun to some people. I have even thought of a contest called boomerang horseshoes. The returning boomerang landing closest to the cliff's edge earns points.
After the boomerang incident, we spent rest of the day relaxing. We read. We napped. We read. We napped. Kathy worked on her blog posting.
Just before the sun went down we took a short nature trail hike. A sign at the head of the trail claimed the trail was closed because of fire damage. However, the campground host said the trail was now open for adults. A fire in December 2007 left a lot of burnt timber standing which might fall. When we walked the trail we saw very little standing burnt timber. We saw some burnt living trees. We were amazed at how many living trees remained.
We went to bed.
The next morning as we prepared the vehicle to drive to Roswell, we discovered the mechanism that turns the spool for unwinding the awning would not wind up the awning. After 30 minutes of struggle, we cut off the canvas and pushed the aluminum frame closed. Since the canvas was now missing, the aluminum frame would not stay closed on its own. We had to duct tape it closed. For those of you that think everything is idyllic on our vacation, here we have evidence that "stuff" happens.
After completing this operation we drove to Roswell stopping to check our email using an open Wifi connection at an RV camp in Mountainaire.
We arrived in Roswell at about 2 pm. We entered from the North, driving down Main Street past big box chain store after big box chain store. It reminded us of Ninth Street in Salina. And, in fact, Roswell is just slightly larger than Salina. We also passed New Mexico Military Institute. Later, in our reading, we learned that NMMI is the Alma mater of Will Rogers, Sam Donaldson and some other fairly well-known people. Finally we passed through downtown where the International UFO Museum and Research Center is surrounded by UFO souvenir shops.
After registering at a campground, we had lunch at a restaurant recommended by the staff at the Visitors Center. Then we went to the UFO museum. It was about 3 pm and, since the museum closes at 5 pm, we postponed our museum visit until the next day, and went to the gift shop instead. We also visited many of the other souvenir shops around the museum until they too closed at 5 pm.
Chris thought the souvenir shops shabby and uninspired. We were the only persons in many of the shops. Several shops were not completely full of merchandise. The messages on the t-shirts lacked the amusing cleverness Chris had hoped to see. Only the UFO Museum 's shop had books and videos about UFOs and even its selection was tiny and uninspired compared to the hundreds of books and videos, fiction and non-fiction, made about UFOs, not to mention related science fiction books and videos.
The most interesting shop we found (for Chris) was the “Not of This World (Heavenly) Cafe.” This cafe appears fairly well-maintained. It sells fancy coffees, Italian sodas, sandwiches, provides Internet, but it also has a circulating Christian library and promotes an anti-alien message. Chris first assumed they are attacking the “new age” ideas often associated with belief in UFOs, but he was wrong.
Their Web site AlienResistance.org explains that the "hosts of heaven" mentioned in the Bible are aliens. They are not demons in the traditional sense. Traditional demons have no bodies. These aliens have bodies, but " they seek to 'mingle with the seed of men' (Daniel 2:43 KJV) and to turn humanity away from the worship of the true God - often claiming to be our creators and/or spirit-guides." In addition to this coffee shop, this group also promotes its views at conferences. The shop sold CDs and DVDs of the speeches at a conference in Titusville, Florida.
On my northwest trip several years ago, I was walking along a trail in the early morning. I was wearing a bright red jacket to protect against the chilly air. A hummingbird stopped and hovered about a foot from my chest. I stopped. He/she looked at me with one eye, then turned and looked at me with the other eye. Finally, probably after a mere 2.5 seconds, seeing no place to poke his/her beak to get nectar, he/she zipped away. Next time I come West I am going to wear only red shirts to attract the hummingbirds.
I took a short hike. I through my boomerang is a small clearing near the flagpole. Eventually, it landed twenty feet up in a pine tree. Fortunately, landscaping around the flagpole provided numerous throwing stones. Unfortunately, I don't throw rocks as accurately as I used to. One rock would go too high. So I would overcompensate and the next rock would go too low. One branch blocked several throws that might have liberated my boomerang. Eventually, after about 20 throws, I succeeded and my boomerang dropped free. That discouraged my boomerang throwing for the rest of the day.
During this trip I have been mulling over the idea of throwing boomerangs off cliffs. The idea of throwing sticks off cliffs and not losing them because they return might seem fun to some people. I have even thought of a contest called boomerang horseshoes. The returning boomerang landing closest to the cliff's edge earns points.
After the boomerang incident, we spent rest of the day relaxing. We read. We napped. We read. We napped. Kathy worked on her blog posting.
Just before the sun went down we took a short nature trail hike. A sign at the head of the trail claimed the trail was closed because of fire damage. However, the campground host said the trail was now open for adults. A fire in December 2007 left a lot of burnt timber standing which might fall. When we walked the trail we saw very little standing burnt timber. We saw some burnt living trees. We were amazed at how many living trees remained.
We went to bed.
The next morning as we prepared the vehicle to drive to Roswell, we discovered the mechanism that turns the spool for unwinding the awning would not wind up the awning. After 30 minutes of struggle, we cut off the canvas and pushed the aluminum frame closed. Since the canvas was now missing, the aluminum frame would not stay closed on its own. We had to duct tape it closed. For those of you that think everything is idyllic on our vacation, here we have evidence that "stuff" happens.
After completing this operation we drove to Roswell stopping to check our email using an open Wifi connection at an RV camp in Mountainaire.
We arrived in Roswell at about 2 pm. We entered from the North, driving down Main Street past big box chain store after big box chain store. It reminded us of Ninth Street in Salina. And, in fact, Roswell is just slightly larger than Salina. We also passed New Mexico Military Institute. Later, in our reading, we learned that NMMI is the Alma mater of Will Rogers, Sam Donaldson and some other fairly well-known people. Finally we passed through downtown where the International UFO Museum and Research Center is surrounded by UFO souvenir shops.
After registering at a campground, we had lunch at a restaurant recommended by the staff at the Visitors Center. Then we went to the UFO museum. It was about 3 pm and, since the museum closes at 5 pm, we postponed our museum visit until the next day, and went to the gift shop instead. We also visited many of the other souvenir shops around the museum until they too closed at 5 pm.
Chris thought the souvenir shops shabby and uninspired. We were the only persons in many of the shops. Several shops were not completely full of merchandise. The messages on the t-shirts lacked the amusing cleverness Chris had hoped to see. Only the UFO Museum 's shop had books and videos about UFOs and even its selection was tiny and uninspired compared to the hundreds of books and videos, fiction and non-fiction, made about UFOs, not to mention related science fiction books and videos.
The most interesting shop we found (for Chris) was the “Not of This World (Heavenly) Cafe.” This cafe appears fairly well-maintained. It sells fancy coffees, Italian sodas, sandwiches, provides Internet, but it also has a circulating Christian library and promotes an anti-alien message. Chris first assumed they are attacking the “new age” ideas often associated with belief in UFOs, but he was wrong.Their Web site AlienResistance.org explains that the "hosts of heaven" mentioned in the Bible are aliens. They are not demons in the traditional sense. Traditional demons have no bodies. These aliens have bodies, but " they seek to 'mingle with the seed of men' (Daniel 2:43 KJV) and to turn humanity away from the worship of the true God - often claiming to be our creators and/or spirit-guides." In addition to this coffee shop, this group also promotes its views at conferences. The shop sold CDs and DVDs of the speeches at a conference in Titusville, Florida.
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