Home sweet home

I'm back in AZ. Not at home, but at school, which might as well be home.

I spent about 12 hours driving through New Mexico. And walking. And sleeping. It wasn't the direct route, but it was a good route.

I headed west from Lubbock into Clovis. The only thing I knew about Clovis was that it shared the name of Clovis Man, or Clovis points, or whatever, so I assumed that the Clovis points were found near there. It wasn't until I left Clovis (On US 70, which goes through Burlington!) that I saw a couple markers for it. I managed to find the site where they actually found it, and walked around the site. Not as interesting as, say, Chaco Canyon, where there are ruins. Here, there are just pits excavated for gravel, a couple markers, and a couple buildings protecting some of the bone excavations. And a 11,000 year old well, which was pretty neat. I think that's now the oldest human artifact I've seen in person. (Well, I guess I've seen some Clovis points, which might be slightly older. Still, a well is cooler. It's the oldest well in the New World, I think.)

I continued from there towards Roswell. I was tired, so I pulled behind an abandoned building to take a nap. I noticed a buck (a 4-point buck, I think, but I was too tired to count) grazing there. I woke up some time later to a bang. It might have been somebody shooting at that deer. I rushed out of there, because I didn't really want to be around when bullets were flying. Well, and because I was now awake.

Roswell is pretty crazy. And pretty big. Bigger than Gallup, I think. Alien stuff everywhere. I was going to get a postcard for Vanessa there, but I decided not to. Too tacky, and I had just mailed one from the Clovis museum. I saw a building that hosted the Alien Resistance as well as a bunch of other stuff. Way touristy. I didn't explore Roswell enough to find the artistry thing that Judy had mentioned, but it's there somewhere.

From Roswell, I drove through some hills and mountains. Some Old-West looking stuff, like from Westerns. A lot of the small towns in that area date from the late 1800s, when the army had subdued the local Apaches. Smokey Bear National Forest was also located there--where the bear that became the inspiration for Smokey was found after a forest fire.

A lot of interstate travel, too, but I'm starting to fade, so I think I'm going to go home and get to bed.