Day 22: Oklahoma to New Mexico

A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.

Tim Cahill.

Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico
588 miles

Got an early start out of Oklahoma for the long drive ahead.
[Oh, I've got to share one more story of our motel clerk in OK.  When we went to get in our room, we realized that most of the rooms on the second floor did not have room numbers.  We went back downstairs to report this to the clerk and she told us, "Oh yeah.  We had a big weddin' here last year and they broke some windows and ripped off screens and took off all the room numbers.  I can go up there and count it off for y'all if you want."  Last year??]

We drove through a little more Oklahoma and a lot more Texas.  Lots of cows, flat land, and dirt-- right out of "Giant."  I expected to see Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor at any moment.  When we crossed into New Mexico, the terrain changed.  Beautiful desert scenes led us to destination #1 of the day:  Roswell and the International UFO Museum! This was decidedly NOT a beautiful scene.  The only plus was that clerk in the gift shop informed us sadly that we had just missed "Alien Fest 2012," and its 15,000 attendees by one day.  Tragic.  As it was, apparently not all of the UFO nerds and conspiracy theorists had left town.  The museum was packed with a very odd assortment of people!

Driving out of Roswell, we went through some mountain passes, dramatically cut canyons, and trees.  On our drive through New Mexico, we saw not only Roswell, but also (purportedly) the beef capital of the world, the largest pistachio nut in the world and the largest chili pepper in the world!

We were thrilled to arrive (in the rain) in Las Cruces, at the Ronga house.  We had a great visit with Michelle, Tony, and the kids, had our first good food in days (El Sombrero, Bob.  Just across the street from Roberto's).  We had their casita to ourselves, and plenty of entertainment from Teah, Emma, and Anthony (who, after beating Mimi soundly at Hungry, Hungry Hippos gave her a very patient lesson in success at the game).  After several long, hot, hungry days on the road, we had a wonderful and relaxing visit!