Wednesday, November 24, 2010

El Paso Texas The Thing


We wonder what this thing could be?

The landscape on the way to Arizona from Texas and New Mexico




Colour is very popular in New Mexico


A Ghost Town


there are millions of these Yuccas in New Mexico and Arizona


Driving from El Paso Texas we see billboards that advertises “The Thing”, our curiosity gets the better of us. It’s really pretty corny, but interesting, probably a crazy old man’s collection ( a little like Grandad’s large collection of walking sticks) this guy has collected interesting memorabilia from all over the world plus has made hundreds of so called creatures.




Joe at the Thing, gave him a taste of Vegemite, he didnt like it one bit, had to rush off to Dairy Queen for an icecream


Just another beautiful sunset


Me with one of the "Things", really its is an Alien, attacking.












Alamagordo and White Sands National Monument



We ended up spending the night in the  little ski town of Cloudcroft about 7000 ft above Alamogordo, it was pretty cold and sooo windy we thought the RV was going to blow over, we ended up getting up at 4am and driving  down the mountain to Alamogordo below and slept for another 3 hours.  We toured through the Space museum and then went onto the White Sands National Monument; The sand was stunning, and it was very sandy to say the least, I really liked it and got a few good snaps.
driving through the desert dunes.


Carlsbad Cavens and living Desert





We are now in Carlsbad and had a nice time at the Living Desert Park, then onto the Caverns.



Inside the Caverns



The caverns were amazing, need to know a little bit more about the operation of my camera, but got some ok shots. The cavern is 800  mtrs underground and about 1800mtrs long  the photos arein the cavern called the Ballroom.
 
 
 
 Between towns called Mayhill and Cloudcroft we got some amazing sunsets

Roswell

We headed to Roswell, we checked out the UFO museum and I think maybe Lee is beginning to cross over to being a believer, about time too, we also attended a christmas tree auction which was believe it or not a lot of fun. Met some great girls at the Tourist Info centre, Suzy and Felicia, who joined in with our sillyness and our Alien capture kit

Felicia, Lee and Suzy, very helpful at the Tourist Information Centre in Roswell 


Us being abducted by Aliens for Christmas in another world ( dont we look terrified !!!!)

This morning before leaving Roswell we stopped off at the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Donald and Sally Anderson, they sponsor about 6 artists each year in a programme that runs for a full year ( fully paid for) , maybe we should apply.


The girls at Bell Gas and our Alien capture kit


 Finally when we were actually leaving Roswell we stopped off to get gas and met 3 great fun girls at the Bell Gas station, who are very interested in our theories on how to capture the foreign creatures.


leaving Albuq to Hard Rock Bosque del Apache


Crazy freeways, very nerveracking.
Leaving Albuquerque NM, we are happy to leave the tangle of spaghetti highways and the fast pace, we stay overnight at Socorro at the Wal-Mart parking lot, we had dinner at a brewery/pizza place where we got talking to a few people who were in town to see the festival of the cranes, from all over the world, Canada, Germany France, so of course we had to check it out.


We got up a 5am and head off to Bosque del Apache wild life centre, maybe a wild goose chase as we don’t know where we are going, but we are amazed when we do find the reserve, we wait in the freezing cold to take some photos, most likely with my camera and standard lens it will be impossible to capture any decent shots, but what the heck we will only be here once so we wait. We did end up getting a few good shots; we will have to invest in a telephoto lens.



The cranes about to fly off Bosque del Apache just before sunrise


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Sunrise and they take flight
The wild life reserve is man made and there are thousands upon thousands of birds nesting and feeding.

Valley of Fires

After leaving Bosque del Apache, went through the valley of the fires, 5000 year old lava flows.


Sheriff Randy and Lee with the Vegemite

Then we stop in a town called Capitan, we met a great Sheriff, Randy we showed him our Alien capture kit and being a local and knowing heaps about this alien thing he was able to give us lots of valuable information. We got Randy to have a taste of the vegemite (alien bate) unfortunately he thought it tasted like fish bait, most people so far think it tastes like S....t






Lincoln County, Billy the Kid territory, also many ufo's have been seen in this area
Fire on the way to Ruidoso


Valley of the Gods Casino and Resort.

Sculptures as the Hubbard Museum
We then went to Billy the Kid county at Lincoln, but because of the time of year most places were closed. Instead of heading straight to Roswell it’s getting late so we stop to ask a local if there were any  other places close by, she recommended stopping  off at Ruidoso where we visited a fabulous resort and casino in the pine forest, had breakfast at an old diner and visited the Hubbard Museum basically it’s a horse museum, with lots of fantastic horse sculptures. The local woman we spoke to  was an  Apache and her husband and their children had actually witnessed a ufo in the woods around their home of Corona back in 1986 ( was the size of  a football field, other witnesses too) .
Sorry about some of the photos being repeated an out of order, this is acting like Jumula, Angela will now what I mean.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Camel Rock, Sandia Casino, Abq Museum and Route 66

Can anyone guess what this is called ( answer at bottom of page.)




Sandia golf Course and Casino only a small part of it
 We are now in Albuquerque, lots of art here too, and casinos ( all pretty grand, all on Indian Reservations ( the indians are extremely wealthy as they own a lot of land and run all of the casinos except the ones in Las Vegas) 

We stopped of at the Natural History Museum and saw lots of dinosaurs that have been found in the region.


Part of a very large bronze scuplture outside of the Albuquerque Museum
 
Lee is standing next to a leg bone of the tallest creature that ever roamed the earth........glad we wont be meeting any of the dinosaurs .......

 We also had to go to the Route 66 Casino, this is a destination that all baby boomers would have to visit. 
A couple of great vehicles outside of the Route 66