Day 6 - Roswell, New Mexico

Today in Roswell was one of great interest and surprise, involving many conversations with people I beautifully disagreed with. The town known for its alien encounters seems to have a surprisingly large conservative population, evidenced by a large stone marker of the Ten Commandments in front of the courthouse.

We started out our day at the UFO Museum, pretty much the most famous (maybe the only?) one in the country. The interesting thing is that the overhead at this place had to be close to nothing. All the walls consisted of the thin, hole-cut walls you see in the aisles of hardware stores, on which hung Wal-Mart clearance bin frames with pages of information in anywhere from 14-48 size Times New Roman font, a stark contrast from the Central High School Museum we saw in Little Rock just a few days prior. Interestingly, this subconsciously took away from the place’s validity in my mind… not that I don’t believe aliens could have landed and the government has kept it under wraps…but I found that presentation is everything. The interactive nature of places like the Holocaust Museum and Central High School, complete with dozens of video slides, audio booths, and walk-through areas where you become the character – Now this is what satisfies by MTV-generation aesthetic and minimal attention span.

We had an hour to kill before meeting with a member of Alien Resistance, a Christian non-profit that helps abductees to recover and move through their rough experiences by advocating “prayer and deliverance through Jesus Christ” who cites that aliens are nothing more than dark spirits or fallen angels of the Devil. Rashina and I walked around the ghost town that is central Roswell to try to find locals to speak with about tourism and America. After a good twenty minutes on the main streets with no avail, we decided to jump into some of the local antique and scrap booking shops, as well as the tourist havens containing dozens of alien screen print shirts, shot glasses, magnets, and the whole gamut of the usual commodities –instead of Elvis or the Alamo, here we have little green men.

More to come soon, but before… let me update you on my new veggie diet I have had on this trip:

Memphis (Day 1) – Lunch: Blues City Café French fries and Baked Beans; Dinner: Indian veggie dinner at Rashina’s!!!
Little Rock (Day 2) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers; Dinner: Meat & Three minus the meat – Mac N’ Cheese, Green beans, and potato wedges at a local “meet n’ three” place.
New Orleans (Day 3) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers; Dinner: Veggie burger w/ fries at ACME.
San Antonio (Day 4) – Lunch: cheese enchiladas w/ Mexican rice and refried beans, Dinner: salad bar from “Souper Salad!”
El Paso (Day 5) – Lunch: French fries, fettuccini alfredo, macaroni salad, banana pudding at Ft. Bliss mess hall; Dinner: Bean and cheese burrito and Mexican rice.
Roswell (Day 6) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers, pickle wedges, M & M’s; Dinner: Bean Burger, broccoli, and tortilla chips.