Not wanting to bore you with a lot of vacation pictures I promise to only show a few of the highlights.
I went to a lot of places in a short period of time and my memory isn’t quite as good as it was in the old days when I had skinned knees and pigtails but I’ll do my best to tell you everything I saw to the best of my ability.
Oddly enough, it was mostly in the upper 80’s overcast and rainy. In the mornings, I had to wear a sweater because it was cold around 54 degrees. Not what I expected to find in the desert. Local people were complaining about how muggy it was. lol It wasn’t anything like Oklahoma humidity and I thought it felt good. Where I live, when it gets humid you can hardly breath.
First stop was Roswell where it is said aliens came to visit a long time a go and just like all foreigners they were relocated to the projects and put on welfare. A few stragglers stayed behind opening businesses and I was fortunate enough to meet a few of them.
We discovered the Bottomless Lake a very cold water hole that is fed by an underground stream and according to the alien at one of the gift shops never gets above 54 degrees. My daughter was tough enough to get in and swim but I’m not quite as brave.
Then we went to Carlsbad Cavern, a deep hole that goes all the way to China. I met a few Chinese families on their way up verifying the depth of that abyss. We saw lots of sticky uppy and hangy downy things. The smell reminded me of my granny’s cellar only without the pile of quilts.
At dusk you can see thousands of bats fly out of that great crevice ready for the all you can eat insect buffet. They look like smoke and in fact that is how they discovered that big hole in the ground many years a go. A cowboy mending fences thought something was on fire and went to check on it and discovered they had a major bat infestation.
The town of Carlsbad also has a rescue zoo with lots of smelly animals and a cute prairie dog village. Also baby turtles have trouble turning them selves over and there is a man who stands by with a stick just to help them back on their feet, which seems like a very boring job. I don’t want to be a turtle up-righter when I grow up.
They grow some really large pistachios in the great state of New Mexico, of course after that bottle of pomegranate wine things might be a little fuzzy. Here I am standing next to one with the grouchy teenager I had the misfortune of traveling with. ~Note to self: next time find a babysitter for the fifteen year old~
We stopped off and looked at the petroglyphs which are drawings letting everyone know that the Indian tribe that used to live here went with the aliens. I guess people have been making graphite since the beginning of time.
Next stop, Ruidoso which white people cannot say correctly. My sister in law told us it was “Ree-a-dosa” which didn’t make phonetic sense to me so I asked a local woman who told me the white people say it that way but the Indians say “Roo-ee-do-so”. That made more sense to me so that’s how I say it. Dang white folks never say anything right.
We did some shopping, found some cool stuff and then we went to a couple of little towns to learn about Smokey the Bear and Billy the Kid. Billy the Kid was a really bad guy who robbed banks until Smokey the Bear put him in jail but those little “U” hooks in the wood floor weren’t strong enough to hold a hardened criminal so he got loose and killed some people. Then, some other guy killed him.
When old Smokey the Bear died he was such a celebrity they had to sneak him in at three o clock in the morning to bury him because they were afraid someone would steal his body. I can’t imagine why anyone would want an old dead bear.
There’s a round adobe building in Capitan village that the locals would get in when the aliens came. Or was it the Apache?
I think that about covers it.
Disclaimer- I wouldn’t take this as an exact lesson in history. Just so you’ll know.
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