The Road to Roswell

I woke up early in Santa Fe. We have put a lot of strain on our poor little Toyota Corolla. As we were navigating through the unknown terrain of New Mexico yesterday, we noticed that our little craft, while smoothly speeding along as if at light speed, was having a problem. The brakes would make a strange alien noise.

Our greatest fear was leaving United States territory, crossing the neutral zone, and breaking down in Northern Mexico, which is now just a couple days away. Our car has been carrying a tremendous amount of cargo and has traveled for what seemed like light-years. We thought we better allow it to dock in Santa Fe for the morning for repairs.

For this reason I found myself standing at the entrance to a small brake shop in Santa Fe at 7:30am in the morning.

I thought that no one else could feel as disgruntled and bent out of shape at being up at this early, that is - until I met the man behind the counter at this brake shop. I'm not sure what sort of Monday evening he had, but he certainly was having a tough morning.

We both drank many cups of waiting room coffee and silently tried to keep our eyes occupied, in my case by magazines, in his case with paperwork.

I finally got the bad news: the rear brakes need to be replaced plus an oil change. Total cost - $150.00. I just had the front brakes replaced and I thought there was a bit more life left to the rear brakes. But this car was taking a one-way trip to Mexico. At least it wasn't a hull breach, but as captain of this vessel, I thought I better play it safe.

Oddly enough, the Check Engine light turned off after the car was serviced. Strange, but I'm not complaining.

Back on the Road
We headed south from Santa Fe towards Roswell. Being a total science-fiction geek, this was an exciting day for me. I was actually going to visit Roswell today. Full speed ahead. Punch it Chewy. Warp Factor 10. Engage.

We have had great weather nearly the entire trip, but the road to Roswell was a strange one weather-wise. Things were not looking good. Lots of menacing clouds. BILLions and BILLions of clouds.

Clines Corners
We spent hours driving through desolate landscape. There was nothing for miles. Suddenly before us was a strange outpost miles away from anything else. It was called Clines Corners. It consisted of a cylindrical object, a few mobile homes, and a general store.

The store was like a cantina full of interesting things and characters. It appeared to be from another time and place. More specifically - the '60s.

But after our voyage through strange weather and endless barren wasteland, we felt as excited as crewmen who were granted shore leave. This was a good opportunity to fuel up the tank and pick up a few rations. As we exited our vehicle, it felt good to resist the constant pull of gravity as we walked and stretched our legs.

The Drive to Roswell
We left Clines Corners and continued south to Roswell. Soon we were assaulted by something translucent and non-carbon based - rain. But it didn't seem like normal rain. Each droplet we encountered appeared to be part of some greater collective conscious. Fortunately the rain did not breach the crew compartment and we remained dry.

We were nearly an hour from Roswell. Then something eerie happened. A cloud hovered over the road in the shape of the Starship Enterprise. Was I just seeing things? I felt like visiting sick bay.

You make the call. Check out these two pictures. It is the real picture. Is that the Enterprise or what?

Then things got weirder. The Starship Enterprise left and it was replaced by the MOON! This was the middle of the day, but the moon hovered over our road. It bore an eerie resemblance to a death star.

You may need to click into this picture to see the moon.

It was as if someone, or something, was trying to reach us, trying to communicate using imagery that we both could recognize. Perhaps it was Roswell's indirect way of saying welcome.

But Roswell also had more direct ways of saying welcome.

Investigating Roswell
Well, now that we were here, we thought we better see what sort of life-readings we could find in this town.

The town seemed pretty class M, but then we found a couple of aliens secretly having tea in a closed business. It appears they were collaborating on writing a book called How to Serve Man. Wow, how benevolent, how gentle, how thoughtful. Unless....wait....It's a cookbook! This can't be true! I shall be burdened with this secret forever! (Please don't sue me Rod Serling)

We finally snuck inside an abandoned warehouse and found a group of aliens. The cost of living must be pretty high in Roswell, because these aliens seemed a little cramped in their living quarters. Do these aliens have a decorator's eye or what? They must feel like they are really back home.

They seemed a bit upset so I tried to appease them with the universal gesture of peace: offering them my iced Starbucks coffee. That seemed to work.

While I was befriending aliens, Nicki was going for something a little more edgy. I found her assisting in an alien autopsy. Why? I just gave up my coffee making friends with these guys.

I told her to tell the doctor to sew that alien up. Yes, make it sew.

In the end, we discovered that the aliens own a chain of restaurants where they were making hamburgers from something called Soilent McGreen. Once we knew the truth, we stood outside their headquarters. It's PEOPLE! It's PEOPLE!

Conclusion
Ok, time to come back down to earth. We had a lot of fun in Roswell.

We had time to investigate the whole Roswell / alien thing and to be quite honest, there really doesn't appear to be much evidence. That is my personal conclusion after weighing everything I learned.

But what REALLY happened to us while we were in Roswell? This blog article certainly didn't cover everything. Can we account for every minute we spent here?

How do you really know what we actually discovered here? What truths did we really unearth? Is it possible that we are covering up something? I did seem a little quick to become a skeptic....

Perhaps you'll never know.