An Entire Micro-Economy Based Upon Lunacy

Our first, and last, stop once we left Arizona (home of the greatest Chimichanga in the world) and entered New Mexico was, obviously, Roswell.  I will spare you a long explanation of Roswell, as everyone knows what the stupid hill people made up in 1947.

Before we finally hit the metropolis of Roswell Proper, we drove through a lot of nothing:

Surprising, I know.

*Fun Aside* – I am an enormous fan of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes.  It is embarrassing.  I still read the comics and have been influenced to an almost unbearable degree by the characters, the art style and, most importantly, the writing/vocabulary.  The books are, simply, perfect.  Because of the influence on my life, whenever I see a bootlegged version of Calvin excreting urine on a Chevy logo, or flipping someone off, I get a twinge of rage. 

Bill Watterson, with the exception of a calendar early in his career, refused to license his characters.  That’s why there are no Hobbes plush stuffed animals or Calvin coffee mugs.  Merits of his refusal aside, when I see the fake stickers or t-shirts or anything else, I feel like I need to defend Bill Watterson and that’s why the anger creeps up.  Now, I don’t get super crazy and yell and scream or whatever, but it does slightly affect me.

I have seen, over the years, hundreds, possibly thousands of Calvin stickers on the rear of cars.  I have never been so moved as when I saw this one, driving in New Mexico:

This sticker is the most appalling of the bunch.  I had never seen anything like it.  If you are unfamiliar with Calvin (Watterson by proxy), then I will only say that Calvin praying to a Christian symbol is, in the religion of C&H, blasphemous.  I wanted to firebomb this Toyota Sequoia with the intention of maiming the sticker buying decision-maker.

Ugh. 

*Fun Aside Over*

See?  Super fun.

When we finally made it into Roswell, New Mexico, we headed straight here (obviously):

If you can’t quite read it, the name of this place is “The International UFO Museum and Research Center”.  Yup.  The last part of the name is not a typo.  They are, apparently, actively researching Unidentified Flying Objects.  For real. 

After all of these years, sixty-three of them, all of the research that they have done (thankfully, using no tax dollars), has netted them a dreary looking warehouse building with, and I am not joking, the adult equivalent of fifteen middle school kids’ science projects.

When you enter, you are met at a grey desk by an elderly man with what appeared to be out of control nose tumors.  He, and his gigantic, bulbous mid-face asked you for five dollars each, then explained how to best enjoy the museum.  Basically, walk around and read a lot.

once we paid, we immediately put our little pins into the map, locating where we were from.  Here’s Amanda putting a pin into terrible, smelly and crappy New Jersey:

Blech.

Once the fun part was over, we started to walk around and read.  A lot.  Science Fair Project 1:

Yup.

Science Fair Project 2:

That’s an actual replica (made of plastic) of a piece of a UFO.  That’s alien writing.  Bet on it.

Science Fair Project 3:

This is the best example of what the museum had to offer.  Basically, you slowly slide left to right reading for tens of minutes on end.  Exciting.

Science Fair Project 4:

This was, by far, my favorite picture.  It’s a grainy picture of an obviously crack potted man trying to explain how, using a hilarious number of colors on his extremely confusing charts, the crash actually happened.  They actually had his real, legitimate, presentation ready white board on display in Science Fair Project 5:

I will just let you peruse that.  Any doubt shadows about aliens?  Decimated.  It’s science, folks.  Eat it.

The dénouement of the museum was a replica of an alien on a gurney:

 

Were I to work on an alien, I would call both a qualified surgeon, complete with gloves and scrubs, and Don Draper.  he probably comes with his own gloves.

In all, Roswell was a bit of a disappointment.  The town was not as ‘alieny’ as I had hoped for, as there were only a few shops dedicated to alien kitsch.   After the experience, we trekked onward to Abilene, Texas for some good, old-fashioned, only game in town Texas high school football: