Bill and Eileen's Travels: Amarillo/Rosewell/Carlsbad NP (6/18

On Saturday 6/18 we moved on to Amarillo. We found out in the first half hour that not all of the Oklahoma swallows were trained well. On I40 at 65 miles per hour we had one, kiss the windshield.
(Windshield 1- Swallow 0). It's really strange seeing a bird coming straight at you. We said a prayer and kept moving.

The campground was a few miles west of the Amarillo area very close to Cadillac Ranch which is one of the Highway America sites. It's a bunch of old Cadillac's that were buried in the ground years ago that has become a place of interest. Go on google and enter Cadillac Ranch and you can read the whole story. One of those crazy things that people love to stop and see. We have pictures below. The people come in hoards with there spray paint cans to add their art to the cars. Crazy.

With the hot weather comes refrigerator problems. We had a guy come Monday morning and we are still babying it here in Santa Fe. The Yeti has come in handy but we have still lost some food. The poor thing is old so I understand that you will have problems now and then.

We went to a very nice church on Saturday. Saint Thomas the Apostle. The music ministry was super and there was a real open welcoming atmosphere. A real full hour mass. We enjoyed.

On Monday 6/20 after some TLC on the frig we moved across the Western part of the Texas Panhandle. This area is Gas, Oil, Nut ranching, and Beef Ranches and Processing facilities. We saw literally thousands of cattle in holding pens just waiting for the final moment. The swallow story pales when you see these pens. We went through Hereford, Texas which bills itself as the Beef Capital of the World. These ranches continued into New Mexico on or way to Roswell.

After setting up in Roswell we went in search of Aliens. We visited a few tourist stores downtown then we went to the International UFO museum. A very interesting place with much information on the Roswell incident. It's real cool to read the details about Roswell. They have affidavits from many of the people involved and you get a real sense that it was a cover up. We did run into a few aliens and also saw a few that didn't live through the landing. This was a fun day. Nice museum. It also included much information on crop circles, UFO sightings, and much more. Enjoyed very much!!

Tuesday was a super day. We drove the car about 100 miles south of Roswell to Carlsbad Caverns NP. It's about 15 miles north of the Texas border. What an Awesome place. We did the Big Room self guided tour which takes about an hour and a half. There are two ways into the caverns a walk in which goes almost straight down 750 feet or the elevator which goes absolutely straight down 750 feet. We chose to ride the elevator.

This place is fantastic. The "Big Room" covers an area the size of 14 football fields with heights from 150 to 250 feet. The pictures do not in any way capture the grandeur of this place. We probably saw 5% of the 31 miles of tunnels and caves that have been discovered. I highly recommend a visit to this park. Another totally different experience at a National Park. It was also nice to get out of the 92 degree weather and go into a 59 degree room. A really fun day.

This morning we packed up and headed northwest to Santa Fe. A short ride, only 190 miles, with an elevation change of about 3000 feet. We came here in 2008 and when we left we said we would return some day. We found a nice little campground right in the town. More to come.

In spite of sour mike it's been a great couple of days. The adventure continues.
LIFE IS GOOD!!

Enjoy the pictures.