I’m really glad I did that and sometimes I admit I get a
little bit uneasy because I’m SO out of the box that I’m not sure if I’ll ever
be able to fit into a box again. Where
does this all end? I’m very unsure and I
never really thought about an “exit strategy”.
I just jumped in with both feet and never thought too much further. I’m just going and living in the moment day
by day. I meet new people almost every day
and have some of the most interesting conversations.
But I know that this will need to come to an end. The money will run dry and I know that over
time I just can’t physically continue this pace of going and going and
going. Sometimes, you just need to stop
and pause; give yourself sometime to evaluate where you have been and where you
need to be. I’ve got this going on in
the back of my mind; mainly in the evening times before I fall asleep. I ask myself—what do I really want to do when
I grow up. It’s silly but in essence
this is a HUGE growing period for me and I’m not sure where I’ll be when I come
out on the other side.
Okay, so with all that being said let me get going on what
my day 90 was like…
I woke up to rain in Roswell, NM. Ugh! I
managed to keep a bowl of cereal down this morning; that was a plus. I’m wondering if it was something I had for
breakfast or dinner the prior night that had caused yesterday’s sour
stomach. I had just gotten done with the
shower when my hotel room door was opened by a maintenance staff. Another two minutes later and he might have
caught me without my towel. He might
have gotten a REAL eyeful! LOL! I think he was more embarrassed than I was;
he quickly apologized and said that the front desk said I had checked out. He left quickly closing the door behind
him. I had gone down stairs earlier to
return a movie I had borrowed from the hotel and put an extra bag in my car but
I wasn’t checked out yet; someone had jumped to conclusions.
 |
| Photo- The International UFO Museum and Research Center. |
Later, I dropped off the keys at the front desk and said
that the maintenance guy could now get in my room to fix whatever needed to be
fixed. They were all sorry for what had
happened but I kind of found it a bit amusing.
I asked one of the gals for directions to the International UFO Museum
and Research Center. Then, I was in my
car driving along the rainy Main Street area of Roswell.
I will tell you that most of the businesses rather play up
the space alien stuff here in Roswell.
You’ll be driving along and a fast food sign will have a space alien
holding the enter sign or there will be green statues standing on each side of
the door. Green aliens with HUGE black
eyes are a common sight in Roswell. I
drove along to the old part of Main Street to the old theater that is now the
place where the International UFO Museum and Research Center resides. It’s rather hard to miss this place; and
there are another couple of places nearby that stand out too. I narrowed it down to just visiting this one
place from doing a bit of web surfing the night before I found this place
seemed a bit more authentic and interesting than the other tourist traps along
the main drag.
 |
| Photo- It's set up to let you decide what to believe. |
I paid the $6 entrance fee and started off in the Museum
area. There was a timeline of newspaper
articles and pictures of UFO experiences in other parts of the world starting
with the 1940’s. Then, on July 4th,
1947 the Roswell experience happened.
There was a timeline of the next days, then weeks, then months afterwards. Some of it was newspaper articles, some of it
contained copies of signed affidavits from those that saw what happened. It was all laid out in a fashion to let you
decide what happened in Roswell. To tell
you the truth, it made me wonder about all of the possibilities and I’m
undecided.
There was space alien art done in one corner and then the
museum worked its way through the subjects of what a UFO is. Then it showed photos of what people thought
were UFOs; some of the photos had been examined and disproved for one reason or
another, but others, well, they just don’t know. Then, the museum covered the subject of space
aliens being in art of ancient cultures and showed some examples. Next, were the crop circles and the theories
and possibilities. It was all very
interesting and rather entertaining.
They had a space ship with aliens out in a large open area that would
periodically start making noises, lights would flash, and fog would come out. But is there other life out there? I think it’s egotistical of us to think we
are the only ones but have they already tried to contact us. I don’t know.
 |
| Photo- A fun little alien invasion within the International UFO Museum and Research Center. |
I went back through Roswell to head north; the goal was to
be in Amarillo before night. Hey, isn’t
there a song about that? I stopped
before I left rainy Roswell at a place called the Rib Crib; a BBQ place that I
would hope to have some of that famous Texas BBQ. Though, I have to admit that I’m a HUGE fan
of Kansas City BBQ so it’ll take a bit to dissuade me from that. Well, it turned out that this was a BBQ chain
and quite a few of their restaurants were in Kansas. They even had one in my home state of Iowa;
Mason City. Well, I wouldn’t therefore
classify this as Texas BBQ. Oh, well but
then again what did I expect… I was still in New Mexico. Hello!??
The drive from Roswell to Amarillo was rainy and very, very
flat. I thought that Nebraska was flat but
in comparison Nebraska is interesting because they have ponds and trees that
they plant almost everywhere there along the highways. This was barren and flat. There were abandoned houses along the way,
and a lot of people living in trailer homes out in the middle of nowhere;
literally. The rained started to clear
up more as I got closer to Amarillo.
Just after the town of Hereford, there was a HUGE cattle holding pen
area along the railroad. It was a pretty
smelly stretch for about 1 mile there.
 |
| Photo- A section of flat Texas. |
The landscape did have a few hills getting up to the plateau
that Amarillo is on. I got to my hotel
in Amarillo and got out of my car and there was that mild smell of cattle that permeated
the air. As some people would say, that’s
the smell of money. It’s not a new smell
to me; growing up in Iowa which is second to Texas for beef producing I’ve gotten
my fair share of smelling that, especially attending an agricultural college in
Iowa. But I have been living in a city
in Utah for almost 23 years and have forgotten what that smell is like.
I ended up asking the hotel clerk about a good BBQ place and
he was directing me to Famous Dave’s which is a BBQ chain that is all over the
west. I was looking for more local. He told me of another place but it was closed
on Sundays. Then, I said that maybe I
should just try an Italian place to which he gave me a suggestion of another
chain restaurant. Please don’t tell me
this indicative of the people in the south that they love chain restaurants
because then I can skip half of Texas in one fell swoop.
 |
| Photo- The sunset from my hotel room window. I made it to Amarillo before nightfall. |
I opted to go to a place down the road called Salt Grass
Steak House. I’m sure it was another
chain restaurant but I will admit that I had never heard or been to one of
these before. It wasn’t too bad. The steak was good, cooked to order and I had
sweet potato fries alongside the steak but they put maple syrup on the sweet
potato fries which I thought was a bit too much sweet. I ordered ranch dressing for the fries and
the server looked at me funny. I was half
tempted to explain I was a Yankee to see if that might explain my strange
behavior. I have the feeling that I’ll
be falling back on that excuse as I go along.
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