We were rushed at Carlsbad yet somehow still managed to see lots of good things. We took the general self guided tour that comes with admission into the park, and that in itself was simply amazing. To that we added a ranger-led tour through King's Palace - approximately one and a half hours of deeper cave exploration jam packed with insightful information. I should mention that the cave was pretty cold (approximately 65 degrees) compared to the current temperatures above ground (approximately 104 degrees). Oh, and you know what stinks? Tons and tons of bat guano! Holy hell did that cave entrance reek of bat poop! If we had stayed for the night, we could have observed the "Bat Flight Program" where they leave en masse at dusk to feed and drink. Anyway, by the time the King's Palace tour was done, it was time to head up to to ground level and begin our drive to Roswell, NM.
On the surface, its appears to be relatively normal, like every other town along the Southwest's highways. Then, as you crawl down Main St., you look more closely at the street lamp, adorned by two large slanted oval eyes, and you realize that Roswell, NM is unique. As you look around more closely you see aliens on everything: storefronts, sidewalks, murals on the sides of buildings, and even the McDonalds playground. Aliens are to Roswell as Jazz is to New Orleans . Take away that constant, and the communities may have never flourished.
Our only planned stop in Roswell was the International Alien Museum and Research Facility. Upon entry we were greeted by a man with a British accent who charged us $5 each and pointed us to the beginning of the Roswell Incident Timeline. The museum, housed in one large room, consisted of dioramas, first hand accounts, photographs, and documents, all with shoddy matting and hung up on grey wood shop pegboards, as if it were someone's weekend hobby. Actually, with all of these documents and artifacts sent in from around the world, you get the feeling that you're looking through the weekend projects of several hundred people. It is most interesting that this space also functions as a research facility. Alien aficionados from all over the world looking to brush up on their knowledge of extraterrestrials visit the museum to do research in its library. The highlight of the museum for me was the section on crop circles, not for the extensive research displayed on the pegboards, but for the little boy sitting in the middle of the exposition making notes in his book, "CROP CIRCLES One of the sines of alion is a crop circle. A crop circle is a circle - shape of a...." and then below that he scribbled what looked like a bail of hay on fire. I think it was supposed to be a crop circle. His entire family was walking around the museum. They came to check on him twice, but he was too busy to care.
We walked around town a bit after the museum - checked out the gift shops and bought some mexican pastries. One of the gift shops, Zone II Alien Headquarters, had a very cheesy black light hallway filled with aliens in test tubes, aliens on dissecting tables with their guts hanging out, and other strange things that had no business under black light. Our last bit of business in Roswell was to find an internet cafe to upload to the blog. We found a great one in the Out of This World Cafe, whose name has a double meaning: (1.) the obvious alieen reference, and (2.) they brew coffee from other countries. The shop was run by very nice people, the iced coffee was just what we needed to beat the 104 degree heat, and the internet was fast as the dickens (whatever that means).
That night we drove about fifteen minutes east to Bottomless Lakes State Park. There we secured a campsite near Lea Lake, which just like every other lake in the park, was not bottomless. They get their name because for their circumference, they are quite deep. For instance, I probably could have swum from one end of Lea Lake to the other in less than ten minutes, and it was 90 feet deep. After setting up camp we excitedly made our way to the lake, solace from the 104 degree day. It only took one toe in the blue-green water to realize that this was an icy pool of DEATH. Then we remembered that the ranger told us about how the lake was spring-fed and that it always stayed "cool". I thought he meant "not a hot spring", but he actually meant "cold". Eventually, we became fully aquatinted with the water and began to explore the bottom of the shallow end with goggles.
Later that night we successfully identified the Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, and Scorpius constellations in a night sky clear of clouds or light pollution.
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1 comment:
Now I feel silly. This is the spot where I should have the left the crystal skulls comment.
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