Blogs from Roswell, New Mexico, United States, North America - page 3

7/25/11 Phoenix, Arizona Driving is Cathartic. This dawned on me while driving the 498 mile stretch from Long Beach to Paradise Valley (Phoenix) when I realized 300 miles in that I hadn’t been listening to any music or radio. I was lost in my thoughts, the desert scenery, my hopes for this trip. This first day really captured my intent for this journey. As far as travel is concerned, I want to see more of the U.S.—especially the landscape of this beautiful country. I felt driving across it would be the best way to achieve that goal. By the end of this trek, I will have driven through 16 states. I am doing this by myself, and participating in a 10-day silent Vipassana Meditation retreat because I want to take time to reflect on aspects of ... read more

Geo: 33.3948, -104.523... read more

Left Santa Fe on Sunday headed for Texas. We stopped in Roswell at the Int'l UFO Museum & Research Center. Sounds more official than it is...lots of newspaper clippings (or should I say lots of different copies of the same newspaper clippings), and the highlight of it was the mock up of an alien from the movie "Roswell". As we were in Roswell, we HAD to stop, but I'm not thinking it's much of a destination trip... On to Carlsbad to spend the night at the local Walmart parking lot. HUGE thunderstorm...and lasted for a few hours!! We got up Monday morning and headed to the caverns. Pretty amazing and well worth the stop...spent 2 1/2 hours exploring the "Big Room". Back on the road headed for Texas...made it to a rest area about half the ... read more

October 21, 2009 This morning we left Gallup at about 8:45am. The city is actually in a Navaho reservation…this just means that they own the land…it doesn’t look any different from any other city (I had visions of teepees and Native Americans in full dress but that’s not the case!). Like many of the Native American areas we’ve been in, the city seemed quite impoverished with few resources. When we left in the morning it was 34 degrees and raining. By the time we got to Roswell, about 350 miles away, it was sunny and 67…it is so strange travelling through these areas and starting out huddled in the back seat with sweatshirts and blankets and then removing articles of clothing as we move along until finally we’re wearing nothing at all…just kidding…whew, that is a ... read more

We finally left the West Texas country and entered into The Land of Enchantment. The landscape as you can see in the photos changed from the creosote bush (AKA greasewood) to grassy rangeland. BTW, the creosote bush can live up to 900 years! Betcha didn’t know that. In fact, the plants can clone themselves and may be the oldest living organisms on Earth…things that make you say…hmmmm. We also left the heat in the lowlands as the grassy plains go up to 5,000 - 6,000 feet in elevation. The cooler temps were an unexpected and welcome treat. We rolled into and through Carlsbad. This region is a major pecan growing area. I was surprised by the number and size of the groves. I guess I associated pecans with the Southeastern part of the USA. We finally ... read more