The Road to Roswell

Well, we're in Roswell, New Mexico, home of the aliens and their mothership... Allegedly...

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity: we went to see Zero 7 at the Orpheum Downtown (OK, but not as good as with Sia and Jose Gonzalez) on JM's birthday, then we went to the premiere of Werner Herzog's new film ("My Son, My Son, What have ye done?"), which had some great moments but was a mediocre film despite a great cast. On the plus side, the great man himself was there to answer questions from the audience and that was very cool. If you want an idea of just how crazy this guy is, rent or buy "Burden of Dreams" on Criterion, about him filming "Fitzcarraldo" on the Amazon. Then, to celebrate the holidays, we went to LA Live to see stand-up comic, George Lopez, who was hilarious. Over the next few days, JM was sick and Jona made tamales with her friend Leticia (yum!).

On Christmas morning, we left Los Angeles on our road trip and drove all the way to Tucson, Arizona. After spending the night there, we drove around Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where there are more than 2,000 old airplanes resting in a graveyard field, which is quite a sight. Then on to the Titan Missile Museum, where a disarmed Titan II missile still rests in its silo. Visitors don hard hats and climb down the Cold War bunker to see the controls and the routines that staff had to deal with at the height of the conflict. It's a pretty overwhelming experience. Technical, yes. Geeky, yes. But it truly illustrates the folly of the Cold War and the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Next, we headed to legendary western town, Tombstone, to the east of Tucson. This is where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral took place, pitting Wyatt Earp, his brothers and Doc Holiday against the McLaurys and the Clantons. The town is amazingly well preserved and is probably one of the best "Wild West" atmospheres one can find nowadays. On the way out of town is the equally legendary/infamous cemetery, Boot Hill. We spent the night in Wilcox, and then drove to New Mexico to see White Sands national park, which is a breathtaking landscape of white dunes. We then detoured from our original plan and headed for Texas. We figured that El Paso was (sort of) on the way to Carlsbad Caverns, so we rode into town and had a humongous Texan dinner at a roadhouse (one of Jona's dreams come true). This morning, we woke up and drove around downtown El Paso, which is a pretty depressing place, with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico just within shouting distance and yet so visibly different. The drug war in Mexico is taking its toll and the US authorities are warning tourists not to cross the border. We stayed on the US side and explored town a while, but preferred to head back to New Mexico.

This afternoon, we reached Carlsbad Caverns, a deep and impressive sequence of caverns famous for its bats (didn't see them because they only fly out in the evening in the summer) and rocks formations. We both really enjoyed the mile walk and emerged into the cold afternoon air excited to reach Roswell by dark. So, here we are. It's a small/big town in the middle of nowhere, apparently built on the back of UFO mythology. We've already seen a fair few stores with alien memorabilia which we'll check out tomorrow, and the local Wal Mart and McDonalds both feature UFO/alien touches, which make them the coolest of their breed. We'll load all the photos when we get back to Los Angeles.

Tomorrow, we're heading north to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque, weather permitting. It's about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) here, but it's a lot colder and snowing up north. Hopefully our frozen fingers will be able to type...