Roswell, all's well.

We haven't hit any internet for a few days but we're fine. Here's what has been going down:

Our day in Roswell began with all you can eat pancakes at Denny’s diner. These aren’t your usual Shrove Tuesday pancakes these are beastly thick things. We got through five covered in maple syrup which means we got our money’s worth and waddled out.

We went to the Roswell Museum first which was free and mainly attended by school trips and we were the only people in there. It was filled with a wide variety of art with some actually very nice pieces. There was also some exhibits on space rockets, missions to the moon and history on the area itself.

The next stop was the UFO museum which was largely newspaper cuttings pinned to the walls and small replicas of items thought to be found at the alien crash site. The main evidence was apparently the “weather balloon” which by today’s standards just looks like a sheet of tin foil. There wasn’t actually too must sillyness and aliens in the place and it took itself quite seriously but the gift shop was obviously full of t-shirts, mugs etc. I found the bathroom quite underwhelming too with your standard set up and only a pastel drawing of a ufo on the inside of one of the cubicle doors. Perhaps if you put the toilet brush handle into a hole in the wall it takes you into the secret alien body storage bunker.

After this we set off again and it was defiantly one of the more ‘interesting’ drives. We were heading into a heavy head wind for the first half which meant the van drinking petrol. We were going through wide open spaces again and then through valleys with dry yellow/ brown hills sticking up on all sides sprinkled with green bushes. There were also turf fields which were almost constantly being sprayed with water while the blistering sun beats down on them.

We stopped off at a town on top of a hill to get gas, a stretch of the legs and to swap drivers. From here we were driving into the sunset on winding hilly roads with the wind still coming on strong. The sun seemed to take forever to set in the wide dessert. The car was like a rollercoaster being rocked around by the wind and the sun pointing directly through the windscreen and it wasn’t the easiest of drives. At times we would drive around a huge rock which sheltered us from the wind and sun and it felt like you could breath for those few seconds until we turned again. When I could I sat behind a lorry but that was no use for the side winds.

Part of the journey was across the route of the historic Route 66. The road doesn’t exist anymore but you can still get your kicks on the same route but on larger roads.

The wind was really up and blowing dust storms across the wide open flats for us to drive through. The sun setting through the pale dust turned everything into a beautiful sepia tone. We reached the continental divide whilst on this stretch and stopped to take a couple of snaps. Stepping out the car was like jumping into the video for Michael Jackson’s Earth Song. I even saw a couple of tumble weeds making their way and at one point I drove straight through a corn devil in the road.
At the end of the drive we were met by our largest Walmart yet. There were lots a few RVs in the car park too and our little van was dwarfed by their huge bus like size. We were rocked to sleep by the wind buffeting us while trains somewhere drove through the night sounding their horns.