| What the hell was wrong with bells anyway?? the hotel alarm beepy buzz
thing went off at like 2 billion decibels too early at 8am.. it was hard
to prise myself out of the luxurious comfort that is the Comfort Inn Las
Cruces but manage it I did.
We were heading out to the White Sands Missile Base but were distracted en route by the cholesterol call of the local Ihop.. actually It must be time to go home as I was unable to finish my fat fest & even gave one of my pancakes to my friend... It was a short drive to White Sands Missile Base, as the missile park itself is inside a military base we had to have a pass made out, this task was handled by "Johnson" a huge coloured guy with the lowest voice in the universe, I swear he made Barry White sound like Frankie Valli, it turned out the voice was a result of a shrapnel wound gained in Vietnam, he was also full of un-removed shrapnel & had a bad leg courtesy a gun shot wound.. naturally I quizzed him as to the degree of pain a gunshot wound provides & his description was graphic enough to keep me from joining the NRA in any capacity... a nice guy tho' if you ever visit there don't let his initial frostiness fool you... |
Pointy death machines... |
The Roswell mystery is solved, it was one of "these" 
The car park at White sands. |
The Missile museum itself was great, all sorts of pointy death machines...
and one stupid thing called "flying saucer" whch was conveniently based
at Roswell.. & is obviously part of the govt. cover up re. ufo sightings
"UFO's? oh, don't worry about them... we made 'em all ourselves.." yeah
right.. the gift shoppe had obviously been taken over by the base commanders
gay son as all they sold was pot pourri and bad jewellry.. this boy has
issues.
We continued on to the White Sands National Monument, my friend had been hyping this place for 2 days solid and following a 350 mile ride it had better be good... it was! I've never been on mars before and this place fixed that, totally surreal dunes all around with no vegetation at all.. we walked around and fell over (ok that was me) and generally had fun.. oh, and it's harder to write in sand than in snow, boys.. Further on up the road was the International Space Hall of Fame, an attraction without any attractions, they have a few models & loads of astronaut photos but thats about it.. a nice lady told us all about the international space station including the European section of it, and I told her that we have a life size model of that section on display in trafalgar square london and it is proving very popular, she believed me... feel free to correct her when you visit. |
| We didn't do the IMAX theatre as we had a long ride back to Phoenix
before us, deciding against the scenic route (as it would all be driven
in the dark.. whats the point?) we headed back down I-10... hang
on, that sign said "Phoenix 328 miles" and we've been on the road for 50
miles.. my friend is in trouble...
Arriving in Phoenix we booked into the Ecconolodge... last decorated in 1952, TV installed 1964, carpet almost self sustaining. This is the last message from this short trip, I had a blast, my friend was a great travel pal, we laughed we ate grease, we drove 2900 miles. See ya. -S
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We walked a ways...
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