Thursday was a really long day. I left San Antonio after turning in some homework and headed 8 hours West to New Mexico. The drive was much prettier than expected. The terrain was flatter than Kansas, but there were plateaus and buttes out in the distance. The drive was a lot of fun, and not nearly as tiring as I had anticipated. I was in Carlsbad, NM by 3pm.

The park at Carlsbad Caverns had a radio station with news and info about the park. It seemed as though I was too late for the last tour of the caverns, which ends at 2pm. So, I drove around the park, taking photos of the beautiful scenery and leisurely made my way up the hill to the museum. When I arrived, I discovered that I had 5 minutes left until the last tour- the times were wrong!

The elevator cuts down 700 feet through solid earth before letting you off in the caverns. I had seen Luray Caverns before, so I was somewhat prepared for what to expect, but I had no idea.... this- of all caverns in the Northern hemisphere- is the one to see, folks. Holy shit.

I had a great time on the self-guided tour through the "great room." It took about an hour and a half to move around the whole room and I was walking quickly too. When the tour was over, I got back in the car and headed North for my two-hour trip to Roswell.

I was up at the butt-crack of dawn in Roswell, NM and checked out of my really nice (but super cheap) hotel room. Right down Main street was the UFO museum, the free attraction...well, the only attraction Roswell offers to tourists. It was a lot less formal than I was expecting, but still pretty interesting. I was also expecting to read about eyewitness accounts from hillbillies, but spent most of the morning reading about the FBI and military's threats to remove and/kill those who were around the scene of the “crash” in 1949. It was pretty interesting. The theory is that two ufo's collided and crash landed near each other and the govt started covering up the whole thing, including the existence of aliens-- immediately. Only a small handful of people awake and nearb at the time saw or heard this, and when news coverage came to report, their equipment was immediately confiscated.

My thoughts? I tend to think that its more than likely we are not alone in the universe, but if a species had the technology to come this far and wide to see us, you'd think they'd know how to avoid each other mid-flight. What these people saw and heard is unknown, and it is definitely strange that a cover-up ensued. Although now, there's too much hype surrounding the event to believe the truth, should it turn out that he military reveals that a John Deere tractor exploded under a propane bug zapper.

Anyhow, I said farewell to that town and “launched” myself across the valley to Alamogordo, NM, home of the Space museum. Outside of the building sat an IMAX theater, so I swung by there first, thinking I could plan the tour around movie times. I had almost two hours before the showing I wanted to see was to begin.

Also outside the museum was a virtual park of weapons and space objects, missle launchers, famous rockets...all surrounded by some really nice landscaping.

I toured the museum and enjoyed learning about the history of space travel. This tied in particularly well with the recent knowledge gained at NASA in Houston, so I really got a lot out of it. The bottom half of the museum was dedicated to knowledge about the recently completed X-prize, a challenge for private companies to race to space successfully. It has been won already, and plans for a new contest are already under way.

I gassed up, went boot shopping (to no avail...the model I really liked wasn't available in my size) and then got lunch at a mom-and-pop Mexican place. This place was a diamond in the rough. Yum.

I got back to the theater with a minute to spare before the doors labelled “no entry once show begins” closed behind me. Whew. The flixk was awesome and discussed the theory of the big bang, and how it relates to us even at a microscopic level. It was fascinating.

I then hit the road for White Sands. National Monument, a park surrounded by white sand dunes. I had so much fun here, first stopping into the visitor center to learn about the white sand, then in going out and playing in the sand myself. Taking a break like this was what I needed, and I normally hate sand in my toes. Still, this was too cool of an experience to pass up. I cuffed my jeans and climbed a dune. The view from up above of the sand dunes and mountain range behind it was spectacular.

The sun was setting as I mad my way out of that area and the surrounding Las Cruces area. I was stopped at a border patrol checkpoint. They asked where I was coming from, and the white sand splashed all over the car (from when I was bombing around, doing doughnuts) helped to corroborate my story. heh. I was pleased that they were stopping people this close to Mexico. I got dinner in a city called "Truth or Consequences, NM"- got a kick out of the name. This was the old name for what most in my generation know as "truth or dare."

Albuquerque was 330 miles away, so I had some driving to do in order to meet Michelle at the airport. We had arranged to meet in Albuquerque back when I was in San Antonio, and decided we'd have a weekend adventure in New Mexico. I met her at the airport at 11:30 and we hit the hay for a very, very long day Saturday.