Albuquerque to Roswell (Day 10)

Welcome to Roswell

In a stunning snap of coincidence, we wake up in eager anticipation of NASA's news conference about the Mars discovery and it's the same day we're planning on going to Roswell, the New Mexico town famous for its own dalliances with space lore. 

Unfortunately the NASA press conference isn't until around 11 AM and we won't have WIFI access until tonight, so we spend most of the morning speculating as to what it could be. Is it aliens? Water? Aliens that live in water?

The walk up Boca Negra Canyon

Before heading down south towards Roswell we drive about 10 miles out of Albuquerque to see the Petroglyph National Monument at Boca Negra Canyon (Spanish for 'Black Mouth'). It's not far from the city and it's still temperate enough for a nice hike. The petroglyphs are markings made by the local Pueblo peoples about 700 years ago, and they can be found on the sides of large black rocks that are scattered all over steep volcanic hillside in this area. 

One of many hundred petroglyphs in the area

As we start hiking up the chaotic pathway we see an older couple coming down towards us, the woman in a NASA T-shirt and the man dressed more formally. They stop to try and take a selfie and Nicole offers to take the photo for them. The man asks us where we're from and they tell us that they work for NASA as scientists.

"We're pretty excited about that Mars announcement", I say, hoping for some information. 

The couple look a bit sheepish, and the man says that he's meant to be at the conference right now but that he and his wife were unable to make it back in time from their trip.

"Do you know what it is?" Nicole blurts out eagerly.

The man has an easygoing smile, "I have my suspicions... I think they've found permanent water".

We chat a little more and the woman gives us a NASA pin each. It's forty minutes before the announcement so we feel pretty special now that we know what the news will probably be. Nicole is really chuffed.

This snapshot of our GPS shows you what roads are sometimes like in America's big cities. Look at that craziness! And this was in Albuquerque, where the highways aren't nearly as stressful as somewhere like L.A. or San Francisco.

Afterwards we start our trip south and take another diversion when we see signs for Wildlife West Zoo. It turns out not to be a real zoo but a wildlife sanctuary for injured and illegally domesticated animals. The lady inside asks us if we've been touring along old Route 66. We haven't, but this explains why this animal park is so quiet and run down. Route 66 was once clearly a thriving tourist route but has now been reduced to hundreds of struggling or closed-down attractions - Wildlife West amongst them.

Wildlife West Zoo

Donated carving outside of Wildlife West Zoo

The lady thanks us for our interest and gives us a bit of background on the refuge. The sanctuary was built with labour  from youth programs, is staffed by volunteers, and is entirely non-profit. This is pretty cool.

We see only one other group of people the whole time we're there. All of the animals are local - Horned Owls, various other birds of prey, some rare Mexican Wolves, Coyotes, Deer, and a rather sleepy Black Bear. I feel sad for a lot of them... not because they're in captivity, but because nearly all of them are incapable of living in the wild due to the influence of humans. A lot of the birds were injured by cars, and some were kept as pets and then released. Unfortunately, once an animal has become 'imprinted' on humans it is no longer able to survive in the wild; unable to hunt food with the same ferocity, and no longer afraid enough of humans to safely avoid them.

Crested Caracaras, a kind of bird of prey that prefer to mostly stick to the ground. These two are named Max and Polly and were illegally kept as pets. As you can see, they are very inquisitive and not at all afraid of humans.

At one point we get hopelessly lost in the animal park, walking up and down dirt trails that lead nowhere - losing all sense of direction. Luckily, Nicole leads us back and then we come to standstill as something yellow, white and black coils across our path. I creep forward a little and take some photos from a safe distance as the snake crosses to some bushes on the other side.

As you can see, this snake was at least a metre long. I think it was a Painted Desert Glossy Snake.

A brief highlight of the park (for me) is finally getting to see a Pronghorn Antelope. This animal is sometimes mistakenly identified as the only North American antelope but it's not actually an antelope at all. It's a unique prairie-dwelling relative of both deer and antelope, and is actually the fastest animal in the Americas - able to reach up to 60 km an hour and sustain such a high speed for even longer than a cheetah.

This bus is part of the wildlife sanctuary.

The drive south to Roswell is fairly uneventful after this point. We hope to stop in Encino (definitely not the one from the movie) for gas but this little place is nearly a ghost town. We see boarded-up houses, a burnt-out motel, gutted gas stations and a tiny house with a huge sign that proclaims 'El Bandido' in big scratchy hand-painted letters.

This gas station sink symbolises the decay of non-freeway America

This little abandoned diner from south of Albuquerque does too.

The huge open spaces and dusty, abandoned buildings throughout America are a little haunting after a while.

Ah yes, finally! Look at that stereotypical diner.

From the outside

A few miles down the road from Encino we reach Vaughn, a more sustained little town with at least two staffed gas stations and a single diner. The diner is really cool, a nicely furbished restaurant in that kitschy '50s roadside Americana style that we'd been looking for. The staff and food are both great, and the diner gleams from outside like some kind of futuristic space ship.

The temperature continues to rise quite unreasonably as we head south, hitting the 90s. Nicole pumps the air conditioner in our car so high that her right arm becomes intensely cold from the vent next to the steering wheel. She pushes it up against my face and it's so cold that it feels like chicken loaf from the deli. Gross.

Around 5 pm we pull into Roswell.

Street art on store wall in Roswell.

Roswell is not what we expect it to be. It's fairly large and there is little to initially indicate its fame as the alleged 1947 crash site for an alien ship. We expected alien paraphernalia everywhere and the sort of '50s/'60s Americana retro nostalgia that populates the televised version of small town America. Instead, the first few miles of the city are pretty standard and boring - the same 30 fast food restaurants, Walmart, military academy, etc.

Store window in Roswell.

I like the store hours on the sign.

Little green footprints on the pavement in the UFO quarter of Roswell.

Black light display inside one of the alien stores.

I remain optimistic as we drive on but Nicole is disappointed. I hope that the International UFO Museum perks her up some but it's closed by the time we get there. This end of town seems to be the 'UFO/Alien' quarter though, and there are a few alien-centric curio stores still open (see pics above). Most of these stores are filled with daggy T-shirts and a few Roswell-related knick-knacks, and - if I'm honest - the flavour is more distinctively tacky than kitsch.  Then again, kookiness and sophistication have never gone hand in hand.

I had Asado from a Mexican restaurant called Tia Juana. It was a great dish, big thumbs up from me!

We'll head back to the UFO Museum tomorrow morning.