oooooooooooooooooooo, eerie!

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Ruidoso to Roswell, NM

82.7 miles
Sunny

Short drive today – figured that since I was in the area, I simply had to make the side trip to Roswell, historic eerie spooky Roswell, New Mexico.

Took the scenic route northeast out of Ruidoso, through the Lincoln Historic District, edging Lincoln National Forest, rolling up and down hills at 6000-6500 feet. Positively lovely!

The Lincoln Historic District?? Yes, well. The National Park Service reviewer of the site, who visited in 1974, believed, then, that it was the best preserved cow town in the United States. Now you know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Historic_District_(Lincoln,_New_Mexico)
The village holds an annual festival in August featuring an open-air enactment of "The Last Escape of Billy the Kid."

Lots of open range here in mid New Mexico, with the classic lone windmill turning slowly in the breeze! The occasional old falling down structure amongst the trees. Then the land turns barren and dry, as far as the eye can see. Perfect place for a visiting space ship!

Roswell was a disappointment for me. I expected lots of play on the outerspace theme. Not. A sad, tired old town…many empty storefronts…almost no reference to the alien spaceship that crashed northeast of here in 1947. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident

The classic old downtown movie theater has been converted to the International UFO Museum, and other than that, I think I only saw three other buildings or shops that made any mention of UFOs or aliens from outer space.

What they do have here is the New Mexico Military Institute, a very handsome campus, highly regarded nationwide, as a co-educational high school boarding military school and military junior college! http://www.nmmi.edu/index.htm