DAY 2 SOCORRO TO HEREFORD TX VIA ROSWELL

Started day 2 with what has become typical for us every year. Route 60 leaves Socorro and heads north then northeast towards Amarillo. Jan said he has never been to Roswell where the Alien spacecraft supposedly crash landed in 1947. A few minutes looking at a map and we found that the road to Roswell is full of green dots indication of a scenic drive. It also was at least a hundred miles farther. So gassed up and headed to Roswell. After all route 60 is a suggestion and not a hard and fast daily route. If we are still heading east we are going the right direction.

The road to Roswell varies from high desert, 7000 feet, to pine covered mountains back to the wide open white sands area. We actually drove right by White Sands Missile Base and the Trinity Site where the first Atomic bomb in the world was detonated in 1945. At the time it was just a theory that it wouldn't destroy the earth.

The road was mostly two lane and unoccupied by anyone but us and a few antelope along the side. Several small towns appeared most of them very depressed appearing. An exception was Lincoln NM a small unincorporated town established in the 1850's where the main street has been largely preserved. The towns claim to fame is as the home town of Billy The Kid.

Roswell was just a quick lunch and a drive down Main Street, I suppose we could have stopped at the museum but Ken was already disappointed that they didn't have an alien petting zoo.

The last couple of days have been full of space stuff, Saturday we also drove through the Very Large Array. This is a system of twentyseven eightytwo foot diameter radio telescopes on tracks that can be moved up to 22 miles apart. It has been in several movies such as Contact and 2010, impressive sight.

Lost another hour and stopped short of Amarillo in someplace called Hereford, TX, nice motel good hottub.Started the day with a jacket finished in shirt sleeves.