Feb. 26-28
Tuesday I had the privilege of explaining to Joanna my fascination with Roswell, N.M.
After all, it is Conspiracy-Theory Central.
Dead center of town, at the intersection of U.S. 285 and U.S. 380 is the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Most of it consists of reproductions of newspaper clippings about the “Roswell Incident” and other reported UFO sightings, mainly from the 1940 and ’50s.
The museum is surrounded. by businesses that include Alien Invasion T-Shirts, Stardust Antiques, and Third Rock From the Sun. I’m not sure what that last one sells, maybe Jimi Hendrix memorabilia.
Up the road, there is a large green bug-eyed man holding the Dunkin' Donuts sign.
The Roswell Incident involves a local who managed a sheep ranch. On his rounds after a storm, he came on a field of debris. He took samples and showed them to some neighbors.
For some reason, they tried to burn some, but found the stuff wouldn’t burn. They applied other destructive processes that also failed. Damn, had to be aliens, right?
The government said it was a weather balloon. There were soldiers, maybe men in black, and rumors of threats and hush money. Just like now. And people have been trying to get to the bottom of the mystery ever since.
The museum also has a reproduction of a Maya carving, copied from Erich von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods,” that can be interpreted as a pilot in a spacecraft.
Near that is a tableau of little green bug-eyed men by a tiny flying saucer. It periodically makes strange noises and smokes.
Background music is a medley of bits from sci-fi movie soundtracks.
It has some of the feel of the Voodoo Museum in New Orleans, only without Screamin’ Jay Hawkins threatening to put a spell on you.
The gift store sells tin-foil hats, just in case you need one.
It took us about three hours to reach our next stop, Big Spring, Texas.
On the way we had paused at a rest area and saw a dead coyote. This is the first time I’ve seen a coyote up close, dead or alive. This one was small, about the size of a thin beagle. It had very graceful features and lots of teeth.
We saw a few more lying along highway. I may have seen carcasses like that before and simply not known what they were.
Much of the trip was through even flatter country than we had seen a few days earlier. This ground hardly rolled.
We came to a ridge now and then and crossed a pass but then we were back on the flat, arid ground. The eastern edge of New Mexico and much of our route in Texas were dotted with oil pumps and tanks.
I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anything, except maybe coal, that can be as much an eyesore as the oil business.
The wind turbines, on the other hand, are also abundant out here, and gorgeous.
We saw some snow caps in the distance, but they are up high. I think we’re out of snow country, at least for a while.
There’s not a lot to do in Big Spring. A Google search turned up a place that looked promising for dinner, Lumbre Bar and Grill. But when we got to 322 Runnels Street, it was not there. The likely address, next to 324, was a boarded-up old movie theater.
Maybe that’s where Lumbre was before it went dark.
Lucky for us the local upscale joint, Hotel Settles, was right on the corner of the same block.
The Settles is a landmark from about a hundred years ago. It has been restored to its early 20th century glory. There is even a pristine Model T in the lobby.
The grill has a limited menu, mostly red meat. But we have come to expect that in this part of the country.
Joanna had the other white meat, a grilled pork chop with a honey garlic dressing. I tried a forkful and it was pretty good.
I’m not a big garlic fan so I took another hamburger. They’re good, but getting old on this trip.
There was no local or even regional ale available. I opted for Two-Hearted Ale from Bells in Michigan. I had it once, when I was in Port Huron so see the start of the yacht race, and was unimpressed. I decided to give it another try and am glad I did.
Maybe the tap in Michigan wasn’t set to the right pressure. This was like an ESB, very nutty and with a good, sharp balance of hops. I had two.
The ale is named for Two-Hearted River, which the brewer says was one of places where Ernest Hemingway liked to go fishing
Wednesday we spent nearly five hours getting to San Antonio
Somewhere along the way we came to a small town at a crossroads called Eden.
We stopped at a luncheonette for a snack. Stretched with a walk through the town square. We bought some elk jerky.
When we passed the sheriff's office, Joanna thought it would be fun to go inside just to say hello.
Good intentions, Darlin, but a likely error.
We’re strangers here. Nothing can make anyone a more outstanding object of suspicion than to walk in unannounced and be overfriendly with policemen for no apparent reason.
So we walked past the station, and after our brief tour, got out of Eden without incident.
I managed put us up in a La Quinta less than a mile from the Alamo. Maybe this is where Santa Anna’s artillery was.
We’re across the street from Market Square, the site of a former open-air market, and now an entertainment center. We went there for dinner.
As you might expect, there are lots of Mex choices. We went to La Margarita.
We sat at a table under the bright flags strung over the mall. The buildings are combinations of hot pink, dark blue, orange, and yellow. So are the flags.
Three mariachis in black were working the crowd inside the restaurant. The trumpet was amazing. I expected to hear “El Deguello,” the call played by the Mexican buglers at the siege. In the movies, they tell you it means “no prisoners.”
Mole was on the menu. I don’t know where to get it back east. This one was not as hot as the sauce at Barrio Queen, but it was just as tasty.
Joanna had enchiladas without the salsa or jack cheese. They were unexpectedly seasoned with black pepper, so she couldn’t handle them. But the grilled veg, guacamole, and rice served her well enough. So did half of my margarita.
The lady doesn’t drink; she just hangs out with me because I’m a bad influence.
When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, the temperature was almost 80 degrees. The sky was bright.
But then the weather that has been dogging us for weeks realized where we were. By Thursday morning, it was drizzling and chilled to the 40s.
Joanna was back into her winter coat. I put on my rain slicker. If anything can make rain stop falling, it’s a raincoat.
Then we stepped out to see what brought us to town. But first there were other, unexpected sights along the way.
First was the O. Henry House. It’s a two-room cabin that has been moved to its present location at the corner of Laredo and Dolorosa.
I judge the entire footprint of the building to be a little smaller than the room at La Quinta. O. Henry—literally William Sidney Porter—edited a humorous literary magazine while he lived there. His rent as $6 a month.
That was before his embezzlement conviction. His famous short stories came after that.
A sign in front of the cabin says a local probation officer uses Porter as an example of rehabilitation. Many parolees are docents who give tours of the place.
We also stopped at San Fernando Cathedral. It’s an old, and therefore pretty, church. On one side as you go in, there is a sarcophagus holding the remains of William Travis, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and other defenders of the Alamo.
Their bones were exhumed for the centennial of the battle, in 1936, and brought to the cathedral for re-entombment.
From there, we walked past Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! to the Alamo.
We strolled first around the plaza looking at models of the old mission and surrounding village at various stages in the past. We were studying the big cenotaph in the plaza, when we were suddenly overtaken by a dozen kids who started to climb on the thing.
Behind our backs the whole plaza had been taken over by scores of kids brought on buses. I cursed my luck that we hadn’t gone straight into the mission church as soon as we arrived.
They were scrambling all over the shrine when we went in. They weren’t doing anything bad, mind; they were just being children.
Children make me nervous. Large groups of children terrify me.
I had visited the Alamo before, almost 20 years ago. I saw more this time than last.
The shrine itself, the old church that’s the icon of the Alamo, can be very spooky. That is, if it isn’t full of excited children.
There is a small encampment of reenactors at the site now. A museum contains artifacts of the time and some reproductions.
A case titled “Touched by Heroes” has personal possessions of Travis, Crockett and Bowie.
I don’t care if anyone can prove that it’s Davy Crockett’s rifle or hunting knife. This is American folklore frozen in time.
We strolled around the River Walk district for a bit and came to Lone Star Cafe on Losoya Street, where we had bison burgers. Bison is leaner than beef.
I may have remarked before: When bison qualifies as health food, your diet has too much red meat.
I paired it with Hopadillo, a good, well-rounded IPA from Karbach Brewing in Houston.
It was a couple of blocks farther that we came onto Leaping Lizard Pub. Joanna pointed out that we had been to the Lazy Lizard in Deming.
So in keeping with the lizard theme, I stopped for an IPA, which was very good, though not top notch, and a pale ale, which reminded me at first of Sierra Nevada, but later tasted a little more citrusy, probably from citra hops.
Then, properly hydrated, I came back and finished writing this message.
So good night, all. And keep an eye out for those little green men.
Harry
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