Our first stop was the city of Carlsbad. Carlsbad is located at an elevation of 3,295 feet (1,004 m). One of our destinations was the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, located eighteen miles (29 km) southwest of the city but on our first day we drove up to the city of Roswell to explore the Aliens.
Roswell is most popularly known for having its name attached to what is now called the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident, even though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some 75 miles from Roswell and closer to Corona. The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object that crashed.
We visited a variety of places in Roswell but one of the highlights was the UFO Museum and Research Center. This is where we began to appreciate the alien eyes on the lampposts, space ship logos on local car dealer stickers, the city of Roswell logo and branding campaign including a space ship, and the great number of documentaries on the “Incident” and television programs with the Roswell name. The museum has quite a number of displays on UFOs, sightings, abductions, history of UFO contact, a gift shop and several movie displays. We walked out of there saying its hard to believe this happened, but it didn’t happen (did it?), why all the government secrecy over what was found there and why are there so many notarized statement from unassuming citizens who saw “something” the government strongly denies they saw.
The next day we headed off to visit the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Carlsbad Caverns includes a large cave chamber, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber that is almost 4,000 feet (1,220 m) long, 625 feet (191 m) wide, and 350 feet (110 m) high at the highest point. It is the third largest chamber in North America and the seventh largest in the world. The road up to the entrance was a real treat. The road climbed up into the mountains and we saw some amazing scenery and plant life.
We arrived at the Park Headquarters and elected to take the Natural Entrance route, which is a self-guided tour.
This one-mile route follows the traditional explorer's route, entering the cavern through the large historic natural entrance. The Natural Entrance route descends more than 750 feet into the earth following steep and narrow trails through a tall and spacious trunk passage called the Main Corridor. The route culminates in the underground rest area, near the elevators and the Big Room route starting point. We had quite a time navigating around Iceberg Rock, a single 200,000-ton boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago. To walk past this boulder you had to stoop and take it really slow. It was the only time we both felt a little claustrophobic.
This one-mile route follows the traditional explorer's route, entering the cavern through the large historic natural entrance. The Natural Entrance route descends more than 750 feet into the earth following steep and narrow trails through a tall and spacious trunk passage called the Main Corridor. The route culminates in the underground rest area, near the elevators and the Big Room route starting point. We had quite a time navigating around Iceberg Rock, a single 200,000-ton boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago. To walk past this boulder you had to stoop and take it really slow. It was the only time we both felt a little claustrophobic.
Once at the bottom, we went along the basic tour through the Big Room Route, a one-mile, self-guiding, underground stroll around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave, the Big Room. It took us about an hour and a half to go through this circular route, which passed many large and famous features including Bottomless Pit, Giant Dome, Rock of Ages and Painted Grotto. It is immense and awe inspiring and we could certainly see why it is rated as a "must see" tour for all visitors to the park.
The next day we drove towards Las Cruces, a small city just north of the Mexican border. Along the way we passed Holloman Air Force Base and then we stopped at the US Army White Sands Base and Missile Range. There certainly was a lot of snow white sand around, so we could see why the Base was named as such.
This is a rocket range of almost 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2). It is the largest military installation in the United States. When seen from the hills, it is a massive territory for military testing of long and short -range missile guided bombs. This base has a lot of history to it including on July 16, 1945 with the first test of an atomic bomb. We visited the museum and the missile park displaying a variety of missiles and rockets tested at White Sands. These include everything from the WAC Corporal and Loon (U.S. version of the V-1) to a Pershing II and Patriot.
This is a rocket range of almost 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2). It is the largest military installation in the United States. When seen from the hills, it is a massive territory for military testing of long and short -range missile guided bombs. This base has a lot of history to it including on July 16, 1945 with the first test of an atomic bomb. We visited the museum and the missile park displaying a variety of missiles and rockets tested at White Sands. These include everything from the WAC Corporal and Loon (U.S. version of the V-1) to a Pershing II and Patriot.
We were warned at entering the Base that we could take all the pictures we wanted to of the artifacts, however we will NOT take any pictures of anything to the West of the Main Gate. With the very high number of Military Police on every corner and most of the roads blocked, we figured there must be a test of some sort going on that day.
We then headed on through the mountains and heavy snow towards the City of Las Cruces. Coming out of the mountains and heading down into the valley below we saw some amazing and absolutely awesome views.
After an overnight stay, on December 2, we left New Mexico and headed off towards Benson, Arizona. After a day in Benson, we'll head off to Yuma for a few weeks then up to the Phoenix area for three months.
No comments:
Post a Comment