Alienland

We entered New Mexico from Texas going on "285". We planned to cross this state quickly and move to Arizona and other full-of-national-parks states, but somehow we got stuck there for much longer than we expected. Our plans made in the evenings by the next day would get totally changed and by the next planning we would realize that we're not much further north…

First night in a new state we spent at the campground in Brantley Lake State Park, between Carlsbad and  Roswell. Having to choose between water+electric hook-up and so called "primitive sites" we chose the latter. It cost us 8 USD. Primitive site meant we could park anywhere we wanted so we chose a picutersque spot by artificial lake, just next to the dam. It was very peaceful and quiet. And windy. Reeeeally windy. So windy that we were afraid our trailer might fell down. So windy that we couldn't really enjoy the beatiful views. Discouraged by the weather we went on a trip to Roswell.

Brantley Lake

Roswell is known especially to all the conspiracy theories lovers, as in 1947 supposedly UFO crashed here and the army tried to cover it up in various ways. There's a private museum dedicated to those events. The entrance is 5 USD (kids free), and the museum looks like a middle school bulletin board. There are lots of newspaper clippings, pictures of participants of the 1947 events with aluminium pieces of weather baloon, or maybe with pieces of spacecraft, testimonies of different people saying that grandpa on the deathbed said he'd seen bodies of aliens but the army threatened they would kill him and his entire family if he ever said anything to anyone, and stories of people who knew someone who heard that someone saw someone who... etc.

Later in supermarket we met a lady who cannot remember the whole thing as she was born in 1947, but her father had told her that on the night of alleged UFO crash they'd seen lots of lights. Something did happen for sure, but wheather it was a meteorological baloon crash or something else - who knows... Spacecrash or not, for sure it helped to save Roswell from economical crash giving employment to dozens of local people and attracting thousands of tourists every year.

The part of museum dedicated to the crash seems like a pretty well led investigation (although led by someone who was convinced that the extraterrestrial species were involved in it), the rest of the exhibition is, to be diplomatic, a little bit chaotic. It consists mostly of blurry pictures of flying saucers, stories of people obducted by aliens, "strong proofs" of aliens' presence on Earth since prehistory, straight from Daniken and posters from  "X-files" and some other tv shows and movies. 

There are also aliens standing in front of their vehicle (which once in a while starts making sounds and light), aliens on operating table and an alien in formalin. Lack of consistency when it comes to anatomy of aliens is a bit surprising, some of them have human hands and feet, some have 4 fingers and 3 toes or other way around, but well, it's aliens, maybe their limbs may be as different as human hair or they're just a bunch of loosers from different planets…

"What did he smoke that his eyes are so small?"

There are not much in Roswell other than the museum and a few shops with not-so-great souvenirs. To sum up, if you're passing by you can stop for an hour or so, but to make a trip just to see it - not worth it. 

Additionally, as a lady in supermarket said, "we don't see too many white faces around here". Which may be a little surprising if someone remember tv show "Roswell". Main characters were 5 white teenagers. Probably they didn't feel alienated because they were aliens, but because they didn't speak Spanish. To find an English-speaking radio station is a real challenge, and anywhere we went we could hear Spanish much more often than English. It's like this anywhere in New Mexico, which after all used to be a part of "old" Mexico. Moving the border didn't change too much in population. We don't mind - at least there are good Mexican restaurants everywhere and we love the sound of Spanish language.