New Mexico. And Aliens.

Back in good ole 2001, when I was a sophomore in high school, I was the typical student, looking into colleges, figuring out where I wanted to go and all that jazz. Being completely sick of Iowa, I was looking into the College of Santa Fe. Arty and far from the Corn State.

Lets just say that within hours of landing, my mom and I knew that this wasn't really the school for me. But that is a whole other story. So with three full days left in New Mexico, what else could we do but travel the state? We decided that a trip to Roswell was a must. As well as the artist community of Taos, including the Native American Pueblo there.

We started off with Taos, wandering the shops in the Pueblo. It was gorgeous. Just how people can use nature, but still live well is fascinating. As well as the fact that they still cook as their ancestors did. We tried this baked dough with sugar. Basically, an ancient version of the fried dough.



There is an artist community close by this pueblo, that is just ridiculous. Its an entire town filled completely by career artists, inspired by the nature surrounding them, and the Indian culture everywhere. I am sure that if everything wasn't at prices sky high, my mother would have bought entire stores worth.

Next stop. Roswell, New Mexico. Home of Alien Crazies. We didn't get started until super late, so we were still quite aways away from Roswell when it got dark. And even after living in Iowa, I have never experienced pitch black like that. We drove the highway, not seeing any other cars literally for hours. It was scary. More than scary. Knowing that there were miles and miles and MILES of desert in all directions, worried about running out of gas. The worst part was passing the probably ten mile long fence right along the side of the road that was littered with signs about being government property and any tresspassers would be shot immediately. Oh yeah, nothing secretive goin on there...

But we did finally make it. And the next day we tourist' it up. People in Roswell are as into the whole alien theory as you would think that they are, if not more. Its filled with crazies. We went to the UFO museum, which was rather interesting. And really reminded me of the museum that they work at in the show Roswell. Plus we ate some lunch at the Crash Down Diner, dont eat there. Its not exactly hygenic looking. The Walmart was greet with paintings of aliens on it. All of the light poles in town had alien heads as light bulbs.
It was definately an experience. A much much better one than having spent three days at the loony College of Santa Fe. Leaving Roswell, we made sure that we wouldn't be driving in the dark. I don't think either of our sanities could take that more than once in a lifetime.

New Mexico is definitely an oddball place. From city to city. But even so, its filled with places of entertainment and adventure!