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Sun. July 4, 1999
"I can jump that."
The Roswell Days Inn gets my applause for offerning a nearly full breakfast to its customers. None of this "continental breakfast" crap for them. No sir! They'll sit you down, a waitress will take your order, and they'll serve you your continental breakfast. It really was nothing fancy but a very welcome addition to our hotel experience.
Leaving Roswell was a sad time for a couple of us but the Jasons had one final chance to take pictures of the various cheesy alien figures that dotted a few blocks of the main street. Since my camera was off in a little digital coma somewhere, I had no chance to capture the beauty and splender that was downtown Roswell, New Mexico. Actually to get out of town, we had to drive through another side of the city that probably had no knowledge what so ever about the 1947 event and didn't seem to have even made it out of the 50s. It really was an interesting and somewhat unreported side of the city whos clame to fame doesn't even come from this planet.
We rolled through the state generally south and westward. At one point the road dropped into a valley that seemed to have nestled in it various settlements and gas station economies. Some were big and some not so big but every little town seemed to have a somewhat mining town feel. Kind of dirty and dusy, these small towns were so far from anywhere that even scandals in the White House probably didn't even make it to the newstands there.
After a bit of mountain driving, our steady Buick carried us over a pass beyond which was a valley with no outlet for water and off to the other end of the basin a thin white line was snuggled against a mountain range. White Sands, New Mexico.
White Sands National Monument is a field of gypsum sand dunes formed from the evaporated runoff from the surrounding mountains. The vast dune fields are accessable only through a park entrance because of the sensitive area surround and partially encompassing the dunes: White Sands Testing Range. We paid the $3.00 per person entry fee and entered the park. Bulbs of the white sand reach out toward the road and look as if they are advancing fields of slow, white-colored lava. The blinding glow of the dunes was the first noticable feature of the park. The Jasons and Dr. Leake quicky grabbed their cameras and we all headed straight up the nearest dune. My first instinct when around sandy areas of any sort is to run and jump off of them. It's a great feeling because you can throw yourself off the most rediculous things and emerge unscathed due to the soft landing. I headed up one of the gypsum ridges and prepared for take-off. Carefully scanning the landing area, I signaled to the waiting cameras that I was ready. I broke into a sprint, shot up into the air, then hit! "SMACK!" was approximately the sound I made when my feet impacted the unusually hard landing strip. Dr. Leake was just beyond me and jumped into action with the precision of a parent. Although the sand I landed on was really compacted, I didn't think I was really hurt except for a possible bruise on the bum. So I gathered what was left of my dignity and promptly tried to join the ranks of the normal, unadventurous tourist.
After finding some truly soft dunes the three guys all took to jumping off a dune. It was great fun and we managed to get a few of the leaps of faith in digital format. I must highly recommed White Sands as a place to be used to challenge one's mind. The surreal nature of the area will twist one's perspective inside out upon their first (and probably further) visit. Just beware of the landing sites you pick out. It could prompt ridicule and fun-poking. Besides, my foot hurts!
Sun. July 4, 1999
The 4th under A Mountain
Our drive west lead us eventually out of New Mexico and into the state with many cacti, Arizona. After a near-border rest stop we jetted toward a rendevou with a man slated to attach an adapter to our spectrascope. Admist on-the-road tensions (we all got a little punchy, loopy, hungry, and worried) we finally pulled off the highway into Vail, AZ. Ron Hilliard is the man from whom VSU and other university's astronomy departments buy their spectrascopes. Since VSU's astronomy department (Dr. Leake and co.) has purchased two of said spectrascopes from Mr. Hilliard, they again summoned him to create a special adapter that would allow a tight connection between their new CCD camera and his company's creation. We pulled to the side of the road just near the freeway offramp and broke out the expensive equipment on the back of Mr. Hilliard's pickup truck. Like a perverted kind of drug dealing scene, a delicate surgery was performed to merge the two instruments. When the job was completed, we placed the newly joined pair inside the Buick and away from the blazing weather. Our destination: Tucson, AZ.
A mere matter of a half-an-hour or so was all it took for the group of intrepid travelers to reach Tucson, AZ. Stemming from our relatively good experience staying at Roswell's Days Inn, we had a reservation made for one in Tucson. Much to our (especially Jason L.'s) shagrin, the one Days Inn can differ greatly from another. The relative danger of the neighborhood it's in becomes apparent when you see razor wire fencing guarding a small storage area for the hotel. We were also slightly (Jason L. was extremely) dissappointed at the lack of a powerful air conditioning unit in our room. Everyone got settled in and got cleaned up to go out to dinner. There was a craving for Mexican food in the air so Dr. Leake directed us past the University of Arizona to a really great restaurant. We only became worried about the place when we saw a woman talking on the phone, balling about how her car was no longer in the parking lot. I ordered a quesadilla and received a fine specimen of the cheesy delight. With satisfied grins on our faces and more than stuffed stomachs, we got back on the road and headed back to our Days Inn. As we approached the hotel there was a frenzy of traffic clogging the streets surrounding our destination. Police officers directed traffic every which way except for the most important one; toward our hotel. What we neglected to realize before dinner was that a small peak near our hotel was to be the site of the city's largest fireworks display. "A" Mountain (a truly clever name) is a small bump in the landscape just west of Tucson's downtown area. Coming off a road trip really makes a body fatigued and we were no exception. The detours that were in place to control traffic flow to various fireworks viewing areas were anything but helpful to us. We circled further and further away from our hotel in hopes that we could find a path that could again reunite us with our overnight resting place. An idea to get on the freeway eventually brought us to the doorstep of the hotel, we illegially parked the Buick, and went out to our room's balcony to watch the show. Although not quite as grandiose or loud as the Ft. Vancouver fireworks back home, there were some really fascinating shapes formed by the exploding shells. After the show there were fire spotting helicopters hovering around A Moutain. A few small blazes were sparked but were soon extinguished by what I'm sure were waiting fire crews.
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