Rollin' with AlienZoo
1/29/2000
Written by Wiggz...also known as the AlienZoo prohibitor of dullness.
Sunday morning: Freshly powered by Waffle House breakfast-lunch, AlienZoo's Zookeeper, Blobbert, and your humble narrator, Wiggz, hit the streets of Phoenix in black Ford Expedition, which is filled with camera, neutrinos, and six dozen cans of Red Bull. Temperature 72 degrees; course set for adventure; thinking about UFO crash sites strewn with self-straightening tin-foil debris; can't wait to go back to the UFO museum in Roswell, the living relic of it all. Somewhere on the eastern outskirts of Phoenix, Blobbert decides to roll down the window and jam one of our two-foot-long, foam-stuffed alien bodies out the window, waving its arms at the seemingly harmless, Dodge Caravan-contained suburbanites we're passing. They just chuckle about it, safe in the knowledge that they'll soon be at home, unloading sacks of Wal-Mart merchandise on their kitchen tables.
"Hoohaa! Pass me another Red Bull!" Somewhere along the way I realize I've had three cans -- that's 750% of my recommended daily allowance of Vitamin B6, and 8000% of my recommended daily allowance of Vitamin BNice. "Howdya liiiiiiiiiiiike meeeeeeeeeeeee nowww?"
Little did Zookeeper and Blobbert know that I would proceed to lose my tape recorder six times over the next 84 hours.
There's no easy way to get to Roswell. Albuquerque, the nearest big city, is 200 miles to the northwest; El Paso is 200 miles from the southwest. I should mention Dallas here, too, but it's too far away. The trek from Phoenix is 560 miles, or somewhere around nine hours. No matter what, it's a long drive -- but a breathtaking one, nonetheless. The northern route, Interstate 60, takes you through the White Mountains -- high elevations of hills of rolling grasslands and wide-open blue skies. When you reach 20 miles east of Globe, you get overwhelmed by tall pine trees. Then you roll through Show Low, Eagar, Alpine, and Springerville. Lots of trees, and valleys with white rock and pink rock. The High Desert.
By the time you hit Socorro, you'll probably be very hungry, simply because there's practically nowhere to eat in western New Mexico towns like Magdalena and Datil (That's Litad backwards). For eats, you should try the El Camino Family Restaurant, which is open 'round-the-clock. Not only is this eatery populated by locals and fascinating light fixtures, it serves fabulous dishes like the delicious taco plate and Tampico-style New York sirloin steak with green and red Hatch chiles. The prices are reasonable, too -- around $5 or $6 an entree. We told our waitress-serviceperson that we'd include the restaurant in our travel guide. Her riposte: "You must not eat here as often as we do." Blobbert says the Socorro Texaco, on the way into town, sells excellent gummi peaches and gummi apples, and has a brilliant sodapop-dispensing unit in the fridge, as it holds bottles from above!
Leaving Socorro (actually about 50 miles west of Socorro) you pass the 27-dish VLA -- the Very Large Array -- undoubtedly the most imaginatively named observatory in the world. A scene from Contact was shot at this 22-mile-across arrangement of 230-ton dishes (Actually, the VLA shapes the background of the DVD's cover.). You should see this motionless spectacle for yourself, as the imposing silhouettes of these galaxy-exploring devices pierce the night sky. Surprisingly, this place offers an unattended visitors' center (Replete with an automated slide show, just for you!), open from 8:30 a.m. until dark every day of the year. Guided tours can be arranged for "educational groups," but only with two weeks' notice. You might as well take the virtual tour.
In the late fall and early winter, it gets dark around 5:30. It gets cold, too -- especially in the higher elevations. Once the reading on the Expedition's external thermometer dropped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, Zookeeper had the glorious idea of rolling the windows down for exactly 60 seconds. Driving at 75 miles per hour, you will find this exhilarating, particularly if you're wearing shorts and a T-shirt, as a rather frosty Zookeeper was. The wind chill seems to drop to minus-10 billion degrees Fahrenheit -- just like the surface of Pluto! Zookeeper enjoyed the experience so much that he tried it with Blobbert and I two more times -- at 10 degrees and at 9 degrees -- keeping us awake long enough to hit Roswell. Of course we do not recommend that such a feat be attempted by novices, as this is the homeland of Smokey the Bear, where a badly singed bear, found after a massive fire 50 years ago, became the national "poster animal" for fire protection.
The last town before Roswell is Lincoln -- Billy the Kid country, the place where the legendary gunslinger accomplished what was probably the most amazing jailbreak in the history of the Old West. Billy the Kid shot a couple of guards on his way to freedom in 1881. Lincoln today is a well-preserved, charming little town.
As for the rest of the trip to Roswell, we were driving through the dark, traveling for miles without spotting any cars. You'll be reminded -- if you've read it -- of the memorable opening lines of Philip Corso's The Day after Roswell: "The night hugs the ground and swallows you up as you drive out of the Albuquerque and into the desert. As you head east along 40 and then south along 285 to Roswell, there's only you and the tiny universe ahead of you defined by your headlights. On either side, beyond the circle of light, there is only scrub and sand. The rest is all darkness that closes in behind you, flooding where you've been under a giant ocean of black, and pushes you forward along the few hundred feet of road directly ahead." Have plenty of CDs handy; you'll be inclined turn up the stereo.
That is, until you're on the western outskirts of Roswell, where you encounter the billboard 106.5 KEND, UFO Country. On Wildcard Wednesdays, if your wildcard number is called, and if you call 505-625-2098 with your wildcard number, you can win a prize from the prize vault. And Roswell Toyota has Corollas starting at $12,999, according to one commercial's effervescent spokesperson.
Descending into town at night, you encounter a surprisingly broad swath of city lights -- a dazzling mass of shimmering neon greens, yellows, and oranges. You realize that Roswell (Elevation 3,570 feet) is no small town. That is, at least by Datil's standards.
Where do you stay on your first night? You've got a choice between mid-tier hotels and a host of independents, ranging from the Ramada and the Zuni Motel. Then there's the Crane Motel, which makes you want to stay there just because of the sign out front. We stayed at the Frontier Motel, whose charm is encapsulated by the conquistador plaques (dream cops?) hanging above beds, 1974-era "waiting room" striped wallpaper, sage-green-tile showers that look excerpted from 1968, and earth-hued quasi-camouflage draperies. Hot cocoa is available in the lobby. The "free" HBO is a plus. We even got to see a show on Discovery about Pursuit Watch, a service that alerts people who live in Los Angeles about televised car chases. All of this for $36 per room per night!
Stay tuned for our adventures in Roswell, coming to your browser next Saturday!