April 17: Albuquerque, NM to Odessa, TX

We woke up at the buttcrack of dawn (actually, due to jetlag, I was also up between the hours of 2-4am) and headed out to Roswell and Carlsbad so as to be able to see both of them. Alfred slept almost the whole entire way to Roswell, which would have been a 3.5 hour drive, but Jimmy, probably driving at 100mph at some points, got us there inunder 3.

We arrived at 9:50 in front of Roswell’s Alien Zone & Area 51, which, according to its store front sign, opens at 10am. So we sat and waited…and waited…until 10:05, and they still hadn’t opened. We then decided to go to the Antique’s shop next door to kill some time. There were seriously some weird stuff in there: a red sequin skirt that would be great for Andrea’s bachlorette party if I were actually gonna go hard-core sequins according to the theme, a old-fashioned rotating-dial telephone that someone seemed to have inserted some telephone cables in (so might have actually worked!), and a Care-Bear kid’s book, complete with song! Alfred and Jimmy also found a Coke picture featuring a woman in the middle surrounded my three men, each giving her a Coke bottle. Of course, because the woman was holding two of the Coke bottles, the boys had to make some sicko joke…

We figure it’s about time to head back to Area 51 (it’s about 10:25), but when we got back to the storefront, everything was still closed. Since we had to leave the area by 11 to make it to Carlsbad before they closed off the entrance, we decided to grab lunch first. We stopped by the McDonald’s to take a few pictures of the UFO-shaped dining area, then ate at Sonic. I decided to call Area 51’s google-listed phone number to see if anyone would pick up, and someone who sounded as if he were stoned answered. I asked him when they were going to open for the day, and he replied, “We open when we get there….” Great. But he told me that he had opened for the day. After Sonic, we headed back to Area 51…and were greatly disappointed.

The Alien Zone part seemed to be part souvenir shop part hangout, all extremely dingy. Area 51 seemed to be made up of small photobooths with Alien cutouts in which people can take pictures in. We decided it wasn’t worth our time and money to pay the $3 per person to go into Area 51 (we poked our heads in, and it, too, seemed lame). There were pictures taped on the store wall of people who had taken pictures in the booths, and they just looked fake/cheap.

So we take off for Carlsbad, and surprise surprise, Alfred is asleep again for most of it. By the time we got to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, it was raining and cold.

I was extremely thankful that the caverns were underground. Tickets for the self-guided tours were free today, so we lucked-out. They also had this neat sunset feature called “Bat Flight,” where you could stay until dusk to watch the hoards of bats come flying out of the cave to feed at night. We weren’t planning on staying for that, but it sounded cool. Starting on our hike (this trail was probably close to 2.5 to 3 miles total), the zig-zagged its way down to the “Natural Entrance” of the cave.

Then it started to get dark. Jimmy’s sneakers squeaked…I thought it was a bat squeaking close to my ear…so I freaked out and ducked. We spent an hour walking the trail toward “The Big Room,” taking a million pictures as we went of stalactites in a multitude of shapes and forms.

Even though they had installed artificial lights so tourists like us won’t trip and fall to our deaths, at some points I was still a little uncomfortable putting one foot ahead of the other, as I couldn’t see the ground in front of me. Points of interest along the route: the Big Room (about 1.5 miles in circumference), the Bottomless Pit, and, of course, the boys found a young pre-stalactite shaped like a breast…

At the end of the trail, a set of elevators brought us up 750 ft back up to the surface, spitting us out in their bookstore, where Alfred adopted a bat for $5. In the tourist info center, there was also a souvenir shop and a restaurant.

Then, it was off to Odessa, TX! Alfred, being Alfred, slept…

Interesting towns along the way…small towns which looked mostly run-down

Loving…

Kermit…

Then, Odessa! Home of the Permian High School; the house with a wall that looked as if someone had driven a truck through it, left the truck there, then re-built the wall around the truck; and our lovely motel, with the room two doors down from ours that featured a dented door which looked as if either a) police had tried to ram it 5 times or b) a big gun had fired into the door 5 times…Another example of how shady our motel was: when Jimmy went to the front desk to ask about the wireless internet, a customer who looked homeless was checking in, paid in cash, and told the people behind the front desk, “If anyone calls, you don’t know me. If a big, dumb-looking guy comes looking for me, I’m not here.”

Dinner at Rosa’s Café & Tortilla Factory, which wasn’t bad, and had decent Margaritas, too.

When we got back to the hotel room, Alfred realized that he had left all his toiletries and his retainers back at our hotel room in Albuquerque, so he and Jimmy had to go to Walgreens to buy him some substitutes. Thanks to our wonderful connection with the owner of the hotel established by Jimmy’s Indian-ness, she gracefully agreed to ship Alfred’s toiletries (most importantly, his retainers) back to L.A. for him.

Tomorrow, off to see the Stonehenge replica, some castle on the way to San Antonio, and then Austin and civilization!!