UFO Museum and Lakes

August 5, 2013

Day off in Roswell, NM

Today I woke up really late for two reasons.  One, my phone is doing a weird thing where when I am downstairs with no service it goes back an hour from the actual time.  Two, the basement had no windows so it was completely pitch black even though it was light outside.  These two factors combined, I had no idea what time it was or what other people were doing.  By the time I got up, most everybody had already left to go get breakfast, so I just made myself some oatmeal and waited for people to get back.  My first order of business for my day off was to mail home a bunch of things I had accumulated in the past few weeks.  I somehow managed to jam it all into one flat rate box, woo! After the post office, Casey, Jeff, Tessa, and I all walked over to the UFO Museum and Research Center--a must see in Roswell (but only once, according to the locals).  

There were lots of newspaper clippings and testimonies surrounding the mysterious event that happened 50 miles from Roswell in the late 1940s.  Long story short, something crashed into a ranchers field and the material he collected from it looked foreign to him and others he showed it to.  There may have been bodies removed from the site but that part is not as clear.  The theory told by believers is that the government completely covered up the true story and instead claimed that the material was that of a weather balloon.  Who knows what really happened in Roswell, but it was really cool to read about.  There was also lots of stuff about other alien encounters, including an abduction that happened in the White Mountains of New Hampshire! 

In the afternoon, most of the group headed to Bottomless Lakes State Park about 20 miles east of Roswell.  Our hosts hadn't given it the highest of reviews, but they said that most Bike & Build groups spend their day there so we went.  So far New Mexico has completely blown me away.  The drive there was gorgeous through the desert and getting into the park was even cooler.  The lakes are created from sink holes so they're really deep, but the water in them is almost crystal clear. The lake we went to was also surrounded by rocks which added to the asthetic.

We all spent a couple hours there, swimming around and hanging out in the sun.  Four people rented a peddle boat and came out to us after we swam across the lake.  It was really a great time and such a relaxing way to spend our second official day off.  That night we were all exhausted so we crashed in front of the movie Cool Runnings, a comedy about the Jamaican bobsled team in the 80s.  It still amazes me how well we all get along together in all types of situations.  I definitely could not have asked for a better group of people  to be biking across the country with.