Day 9

We woke up in Roswell and it was time to get old Alf's oil changed. So while Chrissie showered and packed up her stuff, I drove across the main drag to the local Pit Stop and pulled Alf into the pit bay. Turns out the guy that changed our oil actually moved there from Lakeland, FL (where I, Mike, graduated from college) 11 years ago. Small world! I then drove up and down town stopping at Target, Wal-Mart, and finally Radio Shack looking for a data cable for Chrissie's two cameras, but the only one I found was $30, so you'll not find any pictures at the bottom of this entry. We took some really good pictures today, too.

EDIT: We found one on day 10! Pics at bottom after all!


We hit the UFO strip around 11 am and spent about half an hour poking in and out of the little souvenir shops that sell literally the same thing as their neighbors for almost the same price. The last place we went into seemed to have some business sense, because it's the only store that I felt different about. The guy was immediately talkative (if a little weird) and tried playing Let's-Make-a-Deal even though we had no intention of spending money on Alien toilet paper. Kudos to him for going the extra mile in a town well over their "Alien-crap quota." We then checked into the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which our friend Dan commented was less a museum and more an information center. He was exactly right. The only artifact in the whole place was a beat up piece of Mokume gane that had been disproved years ago. It was interesting to read the plaques that line the entire inside of the building, though. It's sort of a time-line of UFO information going counterclockwise around the inner wall.

By the time we got out of Roswell (after eating Taco Bell for the first time this trip, yum!) it was 12:30. We got only slightly lost trying to find highway 70, but didn't lose much time. New Mexico is gorgeous to drive through. By the time we made it to White Sands, I was pretty sure there couldn't be anything prettier than what I had seen just driving through the state, but we paid our $6 and headed down the 8 mile White Sands driving tour anyway.

Chrissie reporting-


White Sands was really beautiful! The sand there is made out of a mineral called gypsum, which is apparently one of the rarest sand materials around. It was interesting to see this really white sand in the middle of a  ... mostly brown desert. We drove around, got out of the car and I got some great shots of the whole area. Then we saw a bunch of little kids on the sand dunes with sleds, so we decided to drive over and watch them attempt to sled down the dunes.  We thought it would be REALLY INTERESTING ... but it wasn't! This one little boy was taking forever to go down the dune, he was scared, and I don't blame him. I would've been too! It was actually much more entertaining watching his dad attempt to sled and kind of plop over. As gripping as those five minutes were, we had to keep going.


The car ride seemed to take forever, but we finally arrived in Tucson around ... well, we weren't sure what time. I don't think many people know this (I know we were unsure), but Arizona does not follow Daylight Savings time. So, while the rest of the country is "springing forward," Arizona isn't. We had to Wikipedia it and even after doing so and deciding on a time, we later realized we were wrong when we arrived at our hotel and realized we were off by an hour.


Speaking of the hotel/motel ... it is AWESOME! I found it in a travel book I checked out at the library before we left. It gave us the names of a few places to stay in Tucson, and this one seemed fairly cheap, so we decided to give it a try. The place has a separate living room, a mini-kitchen, and free breakfast. It's about 500 sq. ft. of space, and did I mention it was cheap?? Also, the bed is huge, and there are tons of pillows, and it is just the best motel I think I've ever stayed at. When we arrived, the concierge/front desk guy gave me a breakfast voucher. So I asked him if it would be possible to get the breakfast in the morning if we wanted to, and bring it upstairs to eat in our room. I figured that would be ok, but INSTEAD he says, "Oh, no ... you don't have to walk down and get it. We'll bring it up to you. What would you like?" I thought ... what?? Sure! So at 9 a..m someone promptly brought us our food. That made my day. And they've got free apples at the front desk. What more could you ask for than apples?

Mike off the bench:


We used Chrissie's iPod to find a cool Mexican place for dinner that advertised freshly prepared salsa table-side as well as some pretty sweet happy hour deals. We got dressed and headed out the door with the address in hand, but when we arrived, the building was completely closed. We had looked it up in the GPS (which said it existed), the iPod (also said it was there), AND on its own website! No mention of it being closed. And this place was WAY closed. For a long time.


So we drove across the street and got takeout tacos from Rico's drive-through. They were pretty good, especially since we could eat them in the comfort of our hotel living room. And that's how we spent Day 9!