Homeward bound

Dec 31.
All that Joe, Shaq, Reese, the Mook and I wanted to do today was get home to Austin.



So it was a major pull from Carlsbad to Austin. But of course a few interesting things happened along the way.

First was what do you do when you are coming up on a town and want to know if they have a Chinese Buffet? Well you call Sheila Wedegis in Florida and ask her to Google it. Sadly there was none to be found in Ozona Texas so we settled for funky Tex-Mex.

But we did turbo the 491 miles to Austin. Lucky for us I10 in south Texas has the speed limit set at 80mph so we made great time.

And of course we took pictures of the kids on the way.






We are glad to be home and hope you enjoyed coming along on our journey.

Ray & Joe & Shaq & Reese & the Mook

CaveArama

Wow!!!!!!!
That is all you can say about Carlsbad Caverns.
Words cannot express how neat they are. So I am going to just post some pictures and let you ooooohhhh and aaaawwww at them for yourself.

Roswell to White's City

Well Roswell was something!!!

Not much went on between Roswell and White's City.

So you are asking yourself, what is White's City? Well White's City is at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Hence where we wanted to stay rather then Carlsbad New Mexico which is about 20 miles north.

Well first if you are going to visit Carlsbad Caverns, I recommend that you stay in Carlsbad, unless the new owners of White's City restore it to its once predominance. The place has gone down hill over the years and is in need of a major face lift and investment. It could be a great place once again. But I won't dwell on the negatives.

White's City dates to 1927, when Charlie "Jim" White, in New Mexico to cure his tuberculosis, grabbed 320 acres at the mouth of the Canyon leading to the Caverns. Since then, everyone going to the caves has had to pass by.

Here is a picture of the faux castle overlooking White's City:


And here is a picture of the actual bucket used to bring



Next will be a recap of our actual visit to Carlsbad Caverns, which was spectacular.

UFO Extraveganza

What trip to New Mexico would be complete without a stop in Roswell?

But Roswell is more then just UFO's. There are a ton of other things to do in the city. Just who would do them with the thought of UFO's around every corner?

They do have a very fine Military school there.




But before we get to Roswell, let me take you back a few miles. We stopped in Vaughn for lunch. Where we found the (I kid you not) Penny Lane cafe.




Ok, now for what you have been waiting for. The International UFO Museum.

In July 1947, something happened northwest of Roswell during a severe thunderstorm. Was it a flying saucer? Was it a weather balloon? What happened?

Well we are still not sure, but with the opening of the International UFO Museum in the early 1990's a lot has happened in Roswell. Roswell now has a Home Depot Building Center, Super Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, Sam’s Club, PetCo, Famous Footwear and others. New restaurants including Chiles and Applebee's have opened. Roswell wants to be ready for the return of the Aliens and they believe that by having shopping options for them that they will come back.

Ok, the museum is just plain great. It covers all the alien stuff you would ever want to know about.

They have Harold the U.S Air Force's Anthropomorphic dummy used between 1952 and 1963 (they don't say what it was used for).


And what UFO museum would be complete without a reincarnation of an Alien Autopsy?



And then there are the Alien paintings (the sing on the wall is a special message to female aliens)



And finally I leave Roswell with a super cute picture of the Mook. Mook says keep looking at the stars. They will be back.