Roswell fun and Shabbat rest.

Roswell is known for UFOs, alien landings, and Government cover ups, but there is also a lot of Western history here.  The town existed long before the UFO thing started in 1947.  John Chisum (1824-1884) had a huge ranch outside Roswell.  He was so well known that John Wayne played him in the movie named for him, Chisum. He obtained his land, a long skinny stretch along the Pecos river by just occupying it, not that usual back then.  He eventually owned a huge ranch with over 100,000 cattle about 50 miles north of Roswell.  He partnered with Charley Goodnight and Oliver Loving to assemble and drive the cattle to sell to the army in Fort Sumner and Santa Fe. He loved to gamble and often played poker with Texas John Slaughter. Don't confuse him with the Chisholm who created the Chisholm trail.  It's spelled differently obviously.

Today it's Shabbat, so we don't spend money.  We plan to go to the pool, relax, read, and nap all day except for the little bit of time at noon when we go out to look for the big statue of John Chisum in a Roswell park.  We will also pick up Subway salads for lunch and subs for dinner to eat in our hotel using the gift card that Mark pre-loaded with funds yesterday.

Yesterday I ate right and dropped a pound and a half to a new low for this trip, 262.7.  This means I have lost six pounds in three and a half weeks, even though there were many high calorie dinners or lunches along the way.  I'm very excited about it.  There will be no high calorie days before Monday morning's official weight report, so I expect it to be this number or lower.  This is also a 23.6 pound loss since mid-February!

Yesterday we started at the UFO museum, had Subway salads, and then visited the Roswell Museum of Art and History.  Both museums were excellent.  I didn't know all the details about the UFO stuff that happened here in 1947, so it was interesting reading.  I could see how people could make a case for the real thing and a government cover-up or just a weather balloon that fell and crashed.  The museum presented both sides.  We had been warned by my sister Cindy that the museum was cheesy, and she was right, but we still had a great time there.  The other museum had three excellent exhibits, among many other so-so ones.  We learned about an artist whose work we really liked, saw a great exhibit with 30 minutes of video on Robert Goddard because he shot off most of his rockets outside the Roswell area, and another history of New Mexico exhibit with interesting artifacts and a great Time Line.

Our touring of the old West is about over.  Tomorrow we will go to Ruidoso and Lincoln, studying more history and especially the Lincoln County Wars.  We will stay at an old historic hotel in Wortley, NM called the Pat Garrett hotel.  It has no air conditioning or wi-fi, so there will be no blog or pictures until we get to Tucson Monday night.  Tucson is just a two night stop at a clothing optional resort called Mira Vista because we liked it when we were there a few years ago.  Then an overnight in San Bernadino on the way to San Jose and Evey and Eric.  Thursday evening we will be with Evey and Eric for a week.  We will have a lot of fun with them and their new dog, Kiwi!  But tomorrow signals the end of our big Western history tour, so it's kind of sad to think it's about over.  It has surely been a lot of fun!

The alien figure is everywhere on almost every building in Roswell.  This one is greeting us at our hotel.

Brazel is the rancher who originally found the wreckage in 1947.

I put a pin on Kissimmee.  This map and the world one, which was also filled with pins, is cleared off every month.  All these pins were just from August!

Even some astronauts believe we have been visited by aliens.

We had not heard of Billy Schenck, but we did enjoy his style.

Watching the 30 minute video on the history and life of Robert Goddard.  They even mentioned the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Behind Mark is a replica of a a large rocket that Goddard shot off and on the left in a frame is a replica of a small one.  GSFC built that one and loaned it to this museum.

Hurd and Wyeth started this museum with their art.

Henriette Wyeth self portrait.

Peter Hurd self portrait

Henriette Wyeth's portrait of her father, an illustrator.  Her brother was the famous artist Andrew Wyeth.

I literally read every word of this time line.  I really like time lines, but I loved this one because I already knew most all of these facts because of all of our Western history tours this summer and past summers.

Every case had a book listing each artifact and maybe a story about it. Mark is reading the story of a noose in the case behind him. There was only one hanging in all of Roswell, so the noose represented that story.