New Mexico to Texas (Day 11)

Post Office Box, Roswell

I would never have imagined waking up this morning that I would shortly find myself being interviewed on a Chinese TV series about America.

Nicole and I check in to the International UFO Museum and begin a walk through each of the bays that illustrate the various perspectives of what happened in Roswell, 1947. The first thing I will say is, standing in the museum, reading all of these eyewitness accounts from U.S. soldiers and Roswell residents, that it's pretty hard to refute that something very sketchy happened here in 1947. Especially creepy is the transcript from an unaired radio interview that shows the discoverer of the crashed ship talking about the non-human bodies found there. 

Museum from outside.

Every month they clear this board so the next month's visitors can mark where they've come from.

I'm not saying that it was definitely an alien ship that crashed here, but I challenge anyone to come to this museum and walk away believing the official story of a weather balloon crashing. 

Crash!

This clock is made from rattlesnake bones, turquoise, and glass created in the desert sand by atomic bomb testing.

We've come to give your town meaning!

About halfway through our tour, I notice a Chinese film crew moving about the museum from the opposite direction. I take a few sneaky snaps and then think nothing more of it.

An American couple come over to me and ask if I can take their picture in front of the big flying saucer in the centre of the museum. As always in these situations, I defer to Nicole and her superior photography skills. The American couple then introduce themselves as Gary and Michelle. Gary is an astronomer who has travelled all the way here in his RV from New Jersey in just three days. 

Then, BAM. The producer of the Chinese TV show comes over and asks if they can interview all four of us for their documentary series. 

TV crew in action

So there we are, standing on either side of a presenter as he speaks very fast in a language none of us understand. The producer then translates for us. They want to know if we've seen any UFOs. Gary launches into several stories regarding UFOs that he has sighted in his time as an astronomer. Nicole and I, struggling to think of anything that would be relevant, talk about the weird lighthouse we saw back in Area 51. They seem very interested but Gary is easily the star of the show, his emphatic anecdotes about UFOs draw their attention further and they speak to him at great length. 

Nicole and I try to edge away from the interview, sensing (and hoping) that we're no longer required. 

But the producer pulls us back in! I think she just likes the look of having four of us standing in front of the camera. The presenter shakes each of our hands and says "Oh my god" in English when Gary gives him what must be quite a firm handshake. The Chinese presenter strikes a big muscly pose after the handshake to illustrate the strength of it, but Nicole suspects he might be mimicking our ballooning American waistlines. Either way, it's a very surreal situation.  

Gary talks to us some more after the TV crew move on. He tells us that he and his girlfriend are headed to Chaco Canyon next and up through the Extra-Terrestrial Highway. It's like they're doing our journey in reverse. We bid them farewell and continue our look around the museum.

Gary and Michelle are in the middle. The lady on the left is Tammy Fang, a local guide for the Chinese TV crew, and on the far right is her husband.

Artist's representation of U.S. soldiers discovering a Nazi flying saucer in WWII.

Props from the film Roswell

The UFO museum is obviously the only real reason that tourists come to Roswell. It's a busy place, and the displays are impressive and legitimately interesting. And, much to my amusement, every time the sceptic in me voices a thought, Nicole touches her ear and listens to an imaginary transmission before telling me in an official voice that I have to leave. 

By the time we get out of the museum it's midday and we decide to divert a little ways south to see one more attraction in New Mexico before we move on to the next state; the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Carlsbad. 

Another fun store in Roswell is Nifty 50s, which is easily sighted from the road when you notice this car.

Nifty 50s in Roswell

Great photo op inside the store.

Friendly staff too!

Living Desert Zoo and Gardens entrance just outside Carlsbad.

It's a fairly short drive of about an hour, and the zoo is really well set out. Being Tuesday, we almost have the place to ourselves, so it's nice to stroll through the zoo's replications of the various habitats from the Chihuahuan Desert. The gardens are beautiful, and we see tiny lizards run across our path into the cacti. Better yet is when we suddenly freeze at the realisation that the large bugs buzzing nearby are hummingbirds. I had no idea they were that small! 

The zoo features a walk-in aviary where you can watch roadrunners as they dart back and forth with their heads held low.

The Javelina is also known as the Collared Peccary and is found throughout south-western America. Although they look a lot like pigs, they are actually only distantly related.

Inside the nocturnal house with forced facial expression.

Finally got to see a Gila Monster. It was surprisingly animated, and kept opening its mouth while slinking around its enclosure. The Gila Monster is one of only two venomous lizards in the world.

These Prairie Dogs were rad too. They can live in colonies of up to 1000 individuals. The zoo's group is a rather conservative 30 or so individuals.

The zoo also has some Pronghorns. This skull illustrates how the Pronghorn differs from deer and antelopes. Its antlers are made of bone and have a sheath that can be shed. The Pronghorn is the only living remnant of an ancient and otherwise extinct family of hoofed animals.

The zoo feels like a real desert at several points, especially as we bake in the very real heat. Nicole is more than ready to beat a quick retreat to the air conditioning of the car once we're done.

We don't really have a set destination today so we decide to just head east and get as close to Dallas as we can before it gets dark. As we drive through Carlsbad, Nicole keeps the car stationary well after a light has turned green. I notice that she's admiring her new turquoise bracelet from the Zuni Reservation. I subtly remind her to drive on before the car behinds us gets friendly with his horn.

The offending piece.

The drive to Texas is a lonely one. I get a little nervous after a while that we might run out of gas... the roads we've picked don't seem to go through any towns. Slowly but surely, the farmlands around us segue into oil fields - self-operating machinery dots the landscape around us and the air has a dirty haze to it. 

I feel tense for a while that we aren't going to make it to a gas station but don't let on to Nicole that I'm worried. After nearly 2 hours of driving through the big, industrialised nowhere of south-eastern New Mexico, we arrive at the town of Eunice. After such a hazy, eerie trip through the scattered oil fields, Eunice feels like the ends of the earth to me. We fill up on gas and drive on towards Texas. Before we leave I notice a kid playing with a large pile of sand-like dirt outside an abandoned store. I think to myself, that's nice - that kid is making sand castles. However, my opinion changes when he ducks behind the huge dirt pile and then re-emerges with a big earthy clump that he throws at the traffic just behind us. Boredom breeds brats.

Day 11, State 6

Oil fields

The view west, behind us

America - land of capitalism and long signs without adequate spacing.

For one last time we time travel into another time zone as we finally reach the state line for Texas, losing an hour as the sun sets behind us. The oil fields intensify as we drive past Andrews and Odessa, and I notice one that has been set alight in the distance - a huge plume of bright orange flame visible on the horizon. I wonder why it's been lit, if it's an accident or something they do on purpose, and it's something I don't think I'll ever know. That makes me a bit sad.

Nicole had this spud for dinner from McAlister's Deli. She tells me it was good.

Around 7:30 pm we reach the city of Midlands and work our way through three hotel receptions before finding one that's A) available, and B) cheap enough to cater to our Australian dollar.

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.

Nevada (Day 4)

Mammoth Mountain... none of the staff seemed to known why their mountain was named after a Mammoth.

It turns out that Mammoth Lakes is quite a busy little spot when it gets to winter time. As it's still Fall and completely snow-free this means we have the chance to look around without struggling through the ski crowd. Nicole has done her research and decides to take us out to see the Devil's Postpile, and possibly some other things.

Erick Schatt's Bakkery in Mammoth Lakes - who do a great turkey sandwich but do less well at spelling 'bakery'.

On the way we accidentally arrive at the Mammoth Mountain resort lodge. Nicole spots a gondola that goes up the mountain. You know, like a sky car. I am petrified of heights but I also don't want to stop Nicole from doing anything.

So I nonchalantly suggest we go up in it.

Nicole loves this idea. We buy some tickets, find our way into one of the cars, and it starts to ascend.

All I can think of is the James Bond film Moonraker, where Roger Moore goes up in a cable car in Brazil and fights the terrifying henchman Jaws. They both end up outside of the car and dangle over the edge as they duke it out. 

My steely resolves breaks almost immediately and I resolutely stare at the floor as the car rocks around me and lifts into the air. I hear desperate high-pitched sounds and eventually realise that they're coming from me. "Why did you agree to this?" asks Nicole, incredulous. 

My least shaky photo from inside the gondala

I force myself to look up and even take a few photos. I can't say I enjoy the ride but at one or two points I almost don't feel scared. The view from the top of the mountain is quite lovely, and shows a panoramic vista of the big east-Californian wilderness. 

The top of Mammoth Mountain

Puma skin at top of Mammoth Mountain. Most Americans seem far more interested in bears than mountain lions.

After I gratefully make it back to the bottom of the mountain, and Nicole takes a few more happy snaps, we head off for the Devil's Postpile. The Devil's Postpile is an unusual basalt formation caused by a volcanic eruption prior to the last ice age. It's situated along a hiking trail near Mammoth Mountain, not too strenuous a walk, and we see a few more squirrels, chipmunks, and what I think might be a garter snake. 

The postpile is unusual because the columns of rock are strangely geometric. In terms of rock formations it's fairly young - only 80 000 years old - and changing quite rapidly as the years go on. I would suggest you try to see it as it could be gone within the next 20 000 years. 

The Devil's Postpile. Many of the columns are naturally hexagon-shaped.

It gets to 1:45 pm and its time for us to tackle the hard part of the day - getting from Point A to Point B. Our plans for America are to see San Francisco and then move on to Utah, but this means that we have to pass through a whole state that we don't really want to see - Nevada. The most famous part of Nevada is, no doubt, Las Vegas. But unlike most people I know, I have no interest whatsoever in going to the world's most famous gambling town. This means that we have to get through Nevada in the quickest possible time so we can get the most out of our 12 days in the U.S. We settle on taking a series of highways just north of Las Vegas. Google Maps tells me that this should take about 8 hours.

The Loneliest Road in America

Nicole isn't feeling the best, and the drive is too much to undertake in one go. We hold off booking our motel for the night and decide to see how far we can get. I think Nicole plans to get all the way... she's a stubborn bird sometimes, but she's also in a bit of a bad way. Nothing too serious, just needing some rest. What compounds the issue most is that the particular route we have chosen turns out to be the Most Boring Road Ever Built.

The road through Nevada is nothing but brush-desert and cattle grids for many, many miles. It's a very hard drive, with some very long, flat roads. About 20 miles before the first main settlement we notice a strange lighthouse-like structure (see photo below). Internet searches have been unable to confirm what this is, but what we didn't know at the time is this:

We drove through Area 51.

Best photo I could get from the road. This tower in Area 51 was lit up and looked a bit like a lighthouse.

Area 51. The infamous military base alleged to be the home of all things alien and UFO-based in America. More on this in a bit.

Nicole is busting to go to the toilet after a few hours of driving and we decide to stop in the first major town, Tonopah. This decision is quickly rescinded when we enter this town. The first thing we see is an abandoned house with a boarded-up door, spray-painted with the ominous words 'Armed Patrols'. Then there is a large building called the 'Clown Hotel' which has a prominent sign welcoming any and all bikers. Being Nevada, there are also the obligatory casinos, which seem strangely-placed in this remote desert settlement. We pass signs for a gun show, and a quad bike zigzags across the highway in front of us, completely oblivious to road rules. Both riders - one a man and the other the child - wear shirts with the sleeves cut off. 

And then, just as quickly as we enter it from the great stretching nowhere, we're back in the empty desert cradled by jagged treeless mountains. After a few more miles we see the Tonopah Speedway - some grandstand seats, a few stacks of tires, a whole lotta dirt, and some busted-up car shells decorated with local war paint. 

From our view inside the car, Tonopah is like a Mad Max film. That's why we don't stop there. Our prejudices seem confirmed when we see that every subsequent roadside sign is pitted with bullet holes. 

Back to Area 51. We didn't know this was Area 51 when we drove through it, but there were many clues we should have picked up on. The strange lighthouse-like complex was the first one, but we also passed a missile testing range and many signs warning of 'low flying aircraft'. 

Rachel's only Restaurant/Motel

Towards the end of our drive through Nevada we travel along a quiet road known as 'The Extra-Terrestrial Highway'. There are two towns on this highway, but calling them towns is probably a bit generous. The first of these is Rachel, a cluster of makeshift houses built from trailers and shipping containers. One large-ish trailer is called 'The Little Ale-inn' (geddit?). The town's sign is covered in stickers from all over the world, yet the town itself only has 50-odd residents. A bit later we reach Crystal Springs, which is even smaller. There is a large tin bunker here with a giant plastic alien stationed outside, and a graffitied trailer that sells 'E.T. Beef Jerky'. 

Disgruntled bull. I have a history with such bulls.

Nicole's research afterwards uncovers the reputation of this route across Nevada as the 'loneliest road in America'. There is definitely something eerie and tense about this silent and largely unremarkable stretch of highway. The landscape is unchanging and aside from a few angry cattle that wander out onto the road, there is little to see between any of the towns (which are about 100 miles apart from each other). As it gets dark the drive gets more tiring and Nicole decides to call it a day when we get to Caliente, which is about an hour from the Nevada-Utah border. 

It's about 8 pm and Caliente is almost completely asleep. A family of mule deer in someone's front yard look up at us as we pull into town. Despite being less than two metres from our car, they don't move. 

Gotta love American gas stations.

Hash browns in a carton, courtesy of the gas station.

A flower in the desert: the Rainbow Canyon Motel.

Both of the town's restaurants have just shut, so dinner comes courtesy of the gas station (who also run the town's main accommodation, the Rainbow Canyon Motel). The staff are exceptionally helpful and set us up in a room for a very reasonable 55 dollars. Sleep can't come quick enough.