Aliens and Sinkholes

 

I finally make it to New Mexico – The Land of Enchantment. New Mexico has been one of my major goals for this current roadtrip.  I've spent time in New Mexico before, but this time I am going to concentrate on the southeastern area of New Mexico.

First stop is the town of Roswell, and the 'Roswell UFO Incident'. The official version is that in 1947 the U.S. Government recovered debris from a weather balloon. Many people think that an alien spaceship crashed and the U.S. Government has staged a major cover up of the facts.

President Obama: “I gotta tell you, it's a little disappointing. People always ask me about Roswell and the aliens and UFOs, and it turns out the stuff going on that's top secret isn't nearly as exciting as you expect. In this day and age, it's not as top secret as you'd think”

President Trump: “I won't talk to you about what I know about it, but it's very interesting.”

The town of Roswell has turned the whole alien/spaceship incident into a huge tourist attraction. There are alien figures all over town, UFO museums, UFO themed restaurants. Most of it is kitschy and in good fun. As a Roswell tourist, I decided that I should go and see the UFO Spacewalk. One description called it trippy but this is the description that called to me.

“You get beamed up by an alien spaceship and then go through outer space – a wormhole- to an alien planet and a cave full of mutants, before you make it back to Earth, unscathed.”

It takes about five minutes to go through the whole thing and you can go though as many times as you like. Yes, I did go through twice.

Entering the wormhole. 
You were given strict instructions to follow the footsteps.

The eye would move - rather creepy

I was pleasantly surprised that Roswell is not all aliens and tawdry gift shops. The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art was a real eye-opener. In fact, I was rather blown away by it. Don Anderson made his money in oil, but he was also an artist. He started the Roswell Artist in Residency program where each year six artists would be given a year long residency complete with housing and a salary. Mr. Anderson's wanted to see what would happen if an artist could concentrate on their work without distractions or obligations. To my untrained eye, the results were stunning. Anderson started this program in 1967 so there is quite a variety displayed.

I was lucky enough to be able to stay at Bottomless Lakes State Park, a New Mexico state park. I love New Mexico state parks, usually the scenery is great, but they also pay attention to a lot of details that make camping more pleasurable. The lakes at Bottomless are not really lakes, but sinkholes. I wondered how they made sure that where they located the campground was not on top of a future sinkhole. It was picturesque and at night I could hear the sandhill cranes chattering. They are noisy birds, their call can be heard up to two miles away.

View from my back window
The ground is not slanted, I am

One of the sinkholes

Lea Lake (sinkhole)
The campground is to the left.  It must be a great place to camp in the summer.