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Day 9: Roswell, NM

There’s a good Mexican restaurant in New Mexico Roswell, but otherwise there’s really only one thing to do: The International UFO Museum and Research Center, which half-heartedly tries to present the case for an actual spaceship crashing near Roswell in 1947. It’s done at about the level of a high school science fair project, and I can sum it up in one sentence: “These guys couldn’t possibly be wrong!!” One big argument from personal incredulity. How creationist of them.

Here are some typical examples. They had a wall dedicated to an archeological dig that was done at the alleged crash site in 2002. What amazing things did they find?

OK, so what was this “stratigraphic anomaly”? The museum never tells you.

So what the hell were these supposed HMUOs? Again, the museum never tells you. I understand the need to step back and study your findings, but this was in 2002! It’s been six years, and that’s all you’ve got? But it gets better!

SO HOW ABOUT A PHOTO OF THE ACTUAL MANDELBROT SET!!!!

WHAT THE EFFING EFF!! DO THESE MARKINGS RUN AWAY OR SOMETHING??? Why would you draw it instead of photograph it? Oh, right, IT’S ALL MADE UP.

I had never looked at it in a skeptical light before, so I think I held out a little hope, somewhere in my lil heart, that the Roswell Incident actually involved extraterrestrials. Thanks, International UFO Museum and Research Center, for showing me that you are all delusional.

Day 10: Carlsbad, NM

Carlsbad Caverns is just some cave. Blah blah blah, big deal. The cool thing about Carlsbad is not the cave itself, but the fact that you are walking IN A 250 MILLION YEAR OLD REEF. Holy cows.

But here’s the cave entrance:

It was hard to get pictures inside the cave, on account of it was dark, but here’s one:

Day 11: White Sands National Monument, NM

This was another place with really interesting geology. Exposed gypsum from nearby mountains is dissolved by snow- and rain-fed streams and carried down into the Tularosa Basin, from which there is no way out. With no way of escape, the water evaporates, leaving behind deposits of gypsum, which is eroded by wind until you get a small region of pure white gypsum sand dunes with its own unique ecology:

Stumble it!

Posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 in Category Roadtrip 2008. Please comment, ok?