July 26, 2008

Seeking to fill part of a weekend, we decided to fly to Roswell, New Mexico. Yes, Roswell. What is there to do in Roswell, you ask? (Someone please ask this.) Well! There is the UFO museum, of course! Now, we anticipated… not much from this museum, it having been described to us by our friend Andrew as “walking inside a fifth grader’s diorama.” The size and breadth of coverage surprised us, but the quality didn’t. Newspaper piece after piece covers the pegboard dividers, with little sense of narrative or overarching theme. I’m still confused about the events of 1947 in Roswell. The best section was the one showing why certain purported alien pictures were hoaxes or the result of photographic misfires. We appreciate the expertise of people who study this sort of thing – who wants propaganda? I’m open to being a “believer,” if one can present events and clarify how they can or can’t be explained. If mystery still remains, that’s engaging; I’ll go with that. As one of the exhibits asserted, skepticism is essential to the study of alien life forms. This museum lacks that informative stance, instead piling in an uneven mix of accounts and articles and creepy, familiar icons that don’t inform at all. Someone please curate this collection! It could be really fascinating.

Of course this trip wasn’t just about Roswell. After an hour or two there, we were ready to journey to Carlsbad Caverns. I hadn’t ever thought about, heard about, or wanted to go to these caverns, but I’m glad Clint convinced me and planned this part. Now, I’ve been to the Inner Space Caverns in Texas with my students, but this is so much bigger and grander than you can imagine if you haven’t been. I mean, we’re talking a Big Room the size of fourteen football fields, with columns of rock stretching to the ceiling over 60 feet above. We’re talking “cave bacon,” elegant drapery-style formations; we’re talking dramatic spikes poised above your head; we’re talking deep chasms shadowed far below. The 1.5-mile stroll takes you through such varied terrain that you might as well be underwater, experiencing landforms you’ve never seen above ground. The selective lighting leaves much of the caves in murkiness, adding to the mystery. If travel is about shifting your mindset completely, there’s not a better place to spend an afternoon.

It was late and quite rainy at this point in the day, so we sacrificed a four-hour drive over to the White Sands, a gypsum sand dune park. Eh. We rounded out the trip by driving a couple of hours to El Paso, where we would spend the night to fly out of in the morning. Incidentally, I love Southwestern food, so we sought out a New Mexican restaurant, which, disappointingly, tasted just like Mexican food. Where is the good Native American-influenced food? I suppose we’ll have to return to El Paso to find out. (Clint says that’s not likely. Well…I can live with that.) AA makes these short, weird trips possible. Thanks, AA, for allowing us to experience Roswell/Carlsbad/El Paso, which, I guarantee, would never, ever happen on a paying ticket. We were expanded for a day, and that, I suppose, is enough.