A Way We Go . . .: Sand, UFO's, Wire Hangers, and Adobe

Still truckin'. Still sightseeing. Still schooling. Still . . . . wait, we really don't do anything else.

I'm just amazed at the various landscapes and scenery right here in our own country. The vast difference between regions of our country is striking. Obvious differences. I'm not just talking about mountains vs. prairies, or cottonwoods vs. cactus. We're all Americans in these United States, but there are differences in culture, demographics, energy, and even hobbies. The Southwest is a land of its own just as much as is the Bible Belt, or the Midwest, the west coast, or the "best" coast (can you tell I'm biased). It isn't a universal truth, but in our experience, stereotypes of general areas are typically accurate.

After we left Arizona, our travels took us next door to New Mexico. We naively thought we'd get some good Mexican food there. In Santa Fe, we asked a local businessman where we could find the best Mexican restaurant. He clarified, "Would you like Mexican food or New Mexican food?" Our ignorance of the difference offended him. Mexican cuisine uses a lot of spices, salsas and grilled meats or seafood. New Mexican cuisine is described as the "happy marriage" of Native American foods—like blue corn and squash—with chile peppers, wheat flour, pork and other ingredients the Spanish settlers brought with them from Europe and Mexico. We were in New Mexico; we chose New Mexican. Wisely. It's very tasty.

In addition to their own style of food, New Mexico is home to the World's Largest Ceiling Fan.

I have no idea if it's the World's Largest Ceiling Fan. It was just a really big fan at a truck stop.

On Halloween, we visited White Sands National Monument. What a strange place. In the middle of the New Mexican desert lies the most pristine, majestic, gorgeous, white as snow sand dunes. Because the dunes are adjacent to White Sands Missile Range, there are occasionally closures of the park, for visitor safety of course. Formerly, we knew none of this information, but after driving for HOURS only to arrive at a closed park - we now know. We felt like the Griswold family at Wally World, standing there before a locked door and a desolate parking lot. The Missile Range has been a test site for all kinds of space equipment and bombs since the 1940's. In fact, the first atomic bomb was detonated at this testing range. As we drove into the area, we had noticed huge clouds of smoke hovering about 80 feet over the earth. Army helicopters monitored the smoke. Disappointed, we had lunch in the motor home and watched the hovering residue from the explosion on the missile field. As I watched, I wondered if we were inhaling some chemical being tested for mass genocide. I continued to feel normal. Then I began to wonder if the chemical carried some sort of a delayed-release toxin. Maybe it would take charge of our bodies exactly one year from today and cripple us organ by organ. Or, maybe it was just target practice. It is exhausting putting up with my thought life. Regardless, they'd been testing something that day, and to our surprise, it ended up only slightly delaying our entry to the National Monument. We spent some time studying this vast landscape and it's wildlife at the visitor's center before heading out to explore the dunes.

The sand dunes are so white because they are made from the mineral gypsum.

We had such a fun time here. We kept trekking further and further into the dunes to find sand that hadn't been touched. We saw the tracks of a kit fox. We even saw an earless bleached lizard.

Can you find the earless bleached lizard?

Billie Jean is feeling back to her old self.

As far as you can see . . . beauty.


I love them.

As I mentioned, it was Halloween. We needed to find a spot to park and trick-or-treat.

What better spot than Roswell, New Mexico? Roswell! The famous hotspot for UFO and alien sightings.

Like most people, we put a jack-o-lantern on our "porch".

As soon as we pulled up to our RV site in Roswell, a sweet neighbor lady asked the kids to come trick-or-treat at her RV. They quickly costumed themselves with whatever they could piece together from their clothing.

Rock star, cowgirl, and some sort of make-shift Batman.

They ran with their brown paper lunch bags to the RV's to which they'd been invited. They returned after just a brief time with their bags overflowing! They made out like bandits! Full size candy bars, gifts, toys. We've been missing out all these years in neighborhoods -- apparently RV parks are the place to be on Halloween!

One precious lady even gave LAR a stuffed witch she'd made. You just meet the nicest people!

It only took the kids about 12 minutes to fill their bags with goodies in the RV park, and the night was still young, so we decided to explore the city.

We hit the Roswell Civic Center and enjoyed their Halloween celebration.

Roswell, New Mexico. Halloween festivities at the Civic Center.

LAR was particularly impressed with the "Potty Toss" booth.

After the Civic Center, we stopped by a church's "Trunk-or-Treat" festivities, and met the sweetest people. The kids were still on a roll, so we just drove through a neighborhood and let them go to a few houses. I wonder what people thought of us. Here we are pulling up to houses with a South Carolina license plate on our tow vehicle. I could hear people commenting on the "surf board" on our roof. We were noticeably out of place. One house had the dad sitting on the porch, and what appeared to be the mom and two teenage daughters dancing on the front lawn. There was a huge decorative iron cross hanging on their home. They were blaring music, and dancing -- they looked so fun. CBR is always a little pokey. The girls were already at the "fun musical house", and he was running down the sidewalk trying to catch up. My girls were collecting candy and talking with the older teenage girls. As I studied them, I noticed my girls were laughing and singing along with the older girls. This family was rocking out to Christian music. Still making his way toward us, CBR tripped and fell on the sidewalk. All of his precious, hard earned candy spilled. It went everywhere. He freaked out. In the dark, there was no way he was going to be able to see his loot. These sweet teenage girls immediately came running toward him with flashlights and helped him recover every single piece of his candy. It's amazing the impression this family left on us during our brief exchange. To us, they exhibited the true joy that's available through Jesus Christ. They had this magnetic draw, I think it was the fragrance of Christ, that made you want to be in their presence. The kids had such a blast trick-or-treating in UFO/alien territory. The next morning they asked if we could trick-or-treat in Roswell again next year.

Roswell is a city clinging to the historic UFO sighting that put this city on the map. Since the peculiar event in the summer of 1947, Roswell has been explaining their story through movies, museums, and has even developed something of an alien culture. You can't possibly drive through the streets of this city and not pick up on the fact that this town wants you to know its history. Aliens are everywhere! The local McDonald's is shaped like a UFO, and nearly every business advertises their product using little green aliens instead of humans.

See here. Even the street lights have alien eyes on them. Notices the alien painted on the window of the loan shop across the street. They're everywhere!

Night time view of the street lights.

Even the vending machines promoted the aliens.

I'm telling you, aliens are all over the place. I've never seen so much UFO paraphernalia!

Roswell does a great job promoting their history and piquing your curiosity. We found ourselves curious about the details of the story, so we took a tour of their UFO Museum.

My little aliens.

This museum does a good job documenting the timeline of events of the famed UFO
and alien sighting. I'm not quite sure what to think about it all, except that something happened that somebody didn't want others to know about.

Whatever happened in Roswell in the late 40's, one thing is certain -- a modern day experience in Roswell is one you won't find anywhere else.

On our way to Santa Fe, we realized something. Well, two things.

First, our tow vehicle was swerving, but our RV was not.

Second, Mr. Fix-It and I found curious holes in the upper right shoulder of all our button-down shirts.

The first mystery seemed a little more urgent, so we pulled over to solve it. Turns out, an important pin on the device that attaches our tow vehicle to the RV broke. A solid steel pin . . . broke. With our particular tow package, you aren't supposed to reverse the RV. It puts too much pressure on the the front of the car and can snap solid metal pins. Now, my personal driver has handled our rig spectacularly, but I have seen him using reverse. I'm no detective, but I'm thinking that might be why we're now sitting on the side of the road. Thankfully, my personal driver is also a dynamo at fixing things. Within 20 minutes, Mr. Fix-It had pieced together a temporary fix and we were again on our way.

On to our second mystery. The strange holes in our shirts.

LAR pointed out the hole in my shirt to me. Hours later I noticed a similar hole in my personal driver's shirt. Confused, I inspected other shirts in our closet. Many of them had holes in the upper right shoulder. Huh?

I have all our button down shirts hanging (mostly on wire hangers) in the same direction. Neurotic, I know.

Again, I'm no detective, but I play one on the road.

It seems that while the RV is in motion there is just enough vibration in the closet that the wire hangers rub against the back of the closet. Over thousands of miles, this rubbing from the point of the hanger in a concentrated area of the shirt produces a hole.

Mystery solved.

Our final stop in New Mexico was Santa Fe. What a cool town! I love all the architecture and the adobe style. Santa Fe is a real blend of its Native American roots and its Spanish settlers. You find it in the architecture, crafts, and the cuisine. If you're into shopping for art, jewelry, or home decor, Santa Fe is a great spot. We spent several days enjoying the town and it's unique culture.

If you're ever in Santa Fe on a Sunday, find Carlos at Blaze Church! This is one of the friendliest places we've been, and Carlos delivered a powerful message. After church, we spent the afternoon exploring downtown Santa Fe.

Me and the man of my dreams.

My favorite trio - Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico.

All the locals pointed us toward Tia Sophia's as the best place to grab lunch. Our waiter was a dead ringer for Keanu Reeves. We also went to the top of the Bell Tower and enjoyed a gorgeous view. Kids aren't allowed, so "we" means Mr. Fix-It and me separately.

Bell Tower rooftop bar.

CER has been enchanted with weaving since we saw the silk weaving studio in Canada. So, when she noticed a local artisan weaving beads for a bracelet at a local sidewalk festival, she was intrigued. She stood and watched him for quite a while.

We visited with this nice artist for a while. In the end, he made the girls a deal on some leather bracelets with his woven beads on them. They wear them every day.

It's hard being in this area and not be inspired to create. CBR and LAR got excited about making their own bow and arrows. They spent an entire afternoon sharpening sticks into arrows with a pocket knife, and fastening elastic bands onto another stick for the bow. They actually work!

Sharpshooters.

CER chose to create an old Navajo style weaving loom. We'd seen them in a museum, and in books, so she had an idea of what it should look like.

Navajo weaving loom - under construction.

One day we toured the Loretto Chapel, home of the miraculous stairway.

Loretto Chapel - built in 1873. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The story goes like this . . . (copied from their brochure) When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters were called in to address the problem, but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel.

To find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.

The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.

The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. Questions also surround the number of stair risers relative to the height of the choir loft and about the types of wood and other materials used in the stairway's construction.

Over the years many have flocked to the Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Staircase. The staircase has been the subject of many articles, TV specials, and movies including "Unsolved Mysteries" and the television movie titled "The Staircase."

Upon completion, this stairway was a marvel! With no support beams or bracing, the only reason it stands is due to the expert precision in craftsmanship. To think - it was done anonymously!

We were in New Mexico during the presidential election. The kids enjoyed following the excitement by keeping a running tally of the electoral votes.