CANMT Trip: Roswell Part 1

We're almost there!

A McDonald's billboard with an out of this world theme. Now I was getting excited. I can't wait for the Welcome to Roswell or City of Roswell sign!

What? Dairy capitol? Where's the aliens? Where's the sci-fi? Dairy? Huh. It took about 10 more minutes, but then we were surrounded by aliens. Alien stuff was for sell all over the place.

And even businesses that didn't have anything to do with aliens were smart enough to add a few outsied their stores.

I especially loved the light posts.

I knew I wanted to start at the Visitor's Center. I'm very glad we did. This mailbox is right out front.

I love this place! Inside, the Visitor's Center was full of aliens and information.

There were a few things I knew I wanted to do, but the Visitor's Center was still worth the stop. I received a map and found out about other things to do that I didn't know about. But we were in a hurry. We had an hour to spend at the UFO Museum before it closed at that was a must do on my list.

There was a timeline concerning the crash. There were all kinds of things about sightings.

But this was Melodie's favorite.

There was music, lights and a little bit of movement. You can see video of it on their website.
 Luckily, it was a pretty small place, so by the time they were closing we were done. We enjoyed the store next door (they didn't allow pictures) and found some cute alien things. This is where Melodie spent the first of her money. Before our trip we took her piggy bank to the bank where they have a coin counter. She knew that half would go into savings and half would be her spending money on the trip. To my surprise she ended up with $20 for the trip. She spent a few dollars on an alien egg and a glow in the dark alien lollipop.
 We took the opportunity to walk around looking at all the alien display windows when Melodie noticed alien footprints on the ground.

We followed them, of course.

They led us here:

We were greeted by a man behind the counter wearing Vulcan ears and watching 3rd Rock From the Sun, who gave us a Vulcan salute. My people! Melodie saw the "Spacewalk" and was dying to go in. It was basically a blacklight room, but she loved it.

Melodie bought a couple more things (including an alien ring) and we bought her these. I couldn't resist! I loved how much she was liking aliens.

We weren't hungry yet, but there wasn't anything alien-related that was open. What to do?

CANMT Trip: Billy the Kid Trail (Lincoln, NM)

To see the "sights" in Lincoln, we started at the Lincoln State Monument's Anderson-Freeman Museum & Visitor Center. We bought our ticket that would give us access to the other things on the street that required admission. We looked around a bit to learn about what we would see. Everything centered around the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid. From there you just walk down the street and then back up the other side. Here's what we saw:

A torreon. Built in 1849 to defend against Apache raids.

Turnstall Store. Opened in 1877. Many of the original fixtures were still there. The owners were killed in the the Lincoln County War.

I'm not sure why, but this made me laugh. It's the site of the McSween House and was just an empty lot. This was the focal point of the five day battle and was burned down.

The Wortley Hotel. Rebuilt in 1960 on it's original 1874 foundation. Command post for Dolan-Riley during the Lincoln County War. Also where the deputy was dining when Billy the Kid escaped.

Across the street:

The Lincoln County Courthouse. Where Billy the Kid escaped. This is what I wanted to see!

Inside the courthouse:

 There were a few more buildings to see on this side of the street, but Melodie was pretty tired of looking at buildings and I wanted to finish quickly so we'd have time to do things in Roswell. The rest of the buildings didn't really have anything to do with the Lincoln County War or Billy the Kid, so I quickly ran through them to see if there was anything interesting. Not really, so off we drove to Roswell.

CANMT Trip: Billy the Kid Trail (Visitor's Center and Smokey the Bear)

 Now the Visitor's Center was open.

 This was a fun one. It had an area where you could walk on a "road" and there were displays about each stop along the trail. Melodie got a kick out of it.

 

We gathered maps and information, pressed a penny, and started the drive. Along the way some deer started to cross the road! Being the city slickers we are, we pulled over to watch the deer attempt to cross the road. I was so nervous for them!

It took several false starts, but they finally made it to the other side.

Our first stop on the Billy the Kid Trail was the Smokey the Bear area. I'll say area because there was two buildings and an outdoor area that included a historical park, a museum and a gift shop, but I'm not sure what was what.

It was surprising to me that before we told her who Smokey was in the car (yay for all my car activities) she hadn't heard of him. I suppose it shouldn't have been surprising since most of what she know comes from us, and we'd never told her about him. But here was our chance to learn more. Plus, we learned about forest fires and fire safety. It was hard for Mel to understand that some fires were good for the forest.

I always manage to find a little Disney       The real Smokey the Bear's burial place

 We took a chance on our next stop on the trail. I knew Fort Stanton museum and store would be closed (not open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) but we could still walk the grounds. We went and left within a few minutes. We just didn't know what we were looking at.

CANMT Trip: Billy the Kid Trail (Hubbard Museum)

 We woke up that morning ready for showers, but we'd have to wait until we checked into the Days Inn that night. We proceeded with breakfast and packing up and were on our way. We were surprised at how quickly the scenery changed. We weren't in the desert anymore. We were in a beautiful forest.

 We were taking a slight detour to explore the Billy the Kid Trail. This byway looked like it had interesting things that were too good to pass up. Plus, I love Young Guns. I needed to see something that had to do with Billy the Kid. I had chosen the Visitor's Center as the place to start the byway, but we left early and made really good time. It wasn't open yet. We wandered next door to the Hubbard Museum of the American West.

The first room we went to had all different kinds of horse-drawn vehicles.

There were a lot of other interesting old west things. I got my first taste of Billy the Kid stuff. Here are his gun and knife. Supposedly.

But the best part for Melodie was the Children's Interactive Area.

And then we discovered the dress up. Melodie probably could have spent a lot more time there.

There was also a temporary exhibit that we looked at on our way out. It was called Underground of Enchantment and it had 3D pictures of  Lechuguilla Cave. These were beautiful. All of us just had to look at each picture.

We went outside to the front of the museum to walk around "Free Spirits at Noisy Water" sculpture. It features 8 horses and is beautiful.