Roswell

Wednesday the 8th, Bill and I went to the UFO Museum in downtown Roswell. It was a pretty cool little place. It’s free to get into, owned and operated by the taxpayer of Roswell, and donations. It’s housed in an old movie theatre. It has some interesting information in it for those who are interested and willing to read as well as some funny stuff that is sure to make you giggle. All in all it’s a neat little place, in a neat little town.

Everywhere you look in Roswell (at least on the main streets) has alien something in it. Most of the shops along the stretch where the museum is cater to the alien fascination. It’s really a fun little place.

Saturday found us relaxing mostly. We watched the local Boys and Girls club Peewee football on Saturday morning…what a blast! The group we watched were the 6-8 olds, full contact, not flag. It’s so cute to watch these guys run around in pads and helmets that rattle on them. One little guy had to have his coach tie his shoe because he couldn’t bend over without toppling. It was really awesome to see the little guys out there, running around, having a blast. It was also great to see how many parents where there and into it. For those of you who know what we went through with the guys and football in Salem, you’ll understand what that means. The coaches were actually coaching the kids to be aggressive, teaching them how to really play the game, and none of it came across as cruel. The kids where loving it, the parents were loving it, and the coaches did an awesome job. I think we will probably find Peewee everywhere we go, and next time we’ll take the cameras, because it’s just too great to miss.

After that we went to a park that is just about a mile or two from where we are staying. This park is amazing because it’s also a zoo and completely free to get into, it even has a fishing pond that they stock. I’ll have to post the pics of that in the next post, our internet is currently down at the park we are staying so we have to drive into town and find a hotspot. I’ll be posting again soon (hopefully) about the city park/zoo and about our trip out to Bottomless Lakes State Park.

Hugs for now~
;-)K

PS - we never got our internet connection back, but are now at another park, in another city...I'll post the rest of Roswell and other stuff soon. Playing catch up...again!

North Carolina to New Mexico

Whoo…we had another whirlwind drive across the country…but first, let me catch up. The last few days in NC where relatively uneventful, we tried not to do too much since gas prices were all skyrocketing. We did go to another gem mine, a sapphire mine this time. We had a good time and found a couple good sapphires, but I have to say…gem mining is not easy work. We were both exhausted afterwards and our hands were raw and sore from digging in the dirt and sharp rocks.

We left Asheville at 8am on Tuesday the 6th; we drove for 20 hours straight and pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot at about 4:30 am, slept till 8:30, and where back on the road at 9am and in Roswell, NM by 1pm Wednesday the 7th. What a hellacious drive. Now, let me back up. Tennessee is pretty, but really, really, really long to drive straight across. Arkansas…what can I say about Arkansas…there’s a whole lot of not much there. Although we did drive past Peckerwood Lake and Toad Suck Park, both of which made me snicker, I gave up and had to call my sister to guffaw about Toad Suck Park, I mean, come on. I can’t say much about Oklahoma, the sun went down about 20min into the drive through Oklahoma and we drove through the night, if there’s anything there, I didn’t see it. From Oklahoma we drove into Northern Texas, parked in Amarillo and slept for a little bit. We got up in the morning and drove through Northern Texas, at which time I wished it was night again, there is nothing to see there except A LOT of cows, acres and acres of cow pens. But four hours after getting up from 3 hours of sleep after 20 hours of driving, we arrived in Roswell, NM. We are both really tired and looking forward to a good nights rest. We are all set up and ready to stay and have been talking about the different things we want to see while we are here.

We had to pick a few things up at the store and I am SO happy to be back in a part of the country that has Tillamook cheese. I’m very excited to be in the South West and looking forward to spending a good amount of time here.

I told Bill to remind me to kick us both straight in the head if either of us ever thinks a drive like that would be a good idea again.

Hugs from New Mexico~
;-)K

PS - we've named the hula girl, Hi'iaka. Here is an exerpt from http://www.huna.org/html/hawaiian_goddesses.html that explains the name a little bit. Given the weather we've driven through so far, we thought it appropriate. "Hi'iaka is the sister of Pele, born in the shape of an egg. Her name is often given as Hi'iaka i ka poli o Pele, translated literally as "Hi'iaka in the armpit of Pele," and figuratively (by the missionaries) as "Hi'iaka in the bosom of Pele," which has turned into the idea that Hi'iaka was the youngest and favorite sister of Pele among a group of eight sisters. However, the earliest accounts indicate that Hi'iaka was the only sister of Pele who came with her to Hawaii. The other Hi'iaka "sisters" are actually just aspects of the original Hi'iaka. "Armpit," by the way, was a euphemism for another part of the body, so Hi'iaka may actually have been the daughter of Pele. All of the Hi'iaka "sisters" had cloud forms, but their names really refer to the "holding" of clouds, according to the translations of William Ellis, not to the clouds themselves. So there is Hi'iaka-wawahi-lani (Heaven-rending cloud holder); Hi'iaka-kapu-enaena (red-hot mountain-holding cloud); Hi'iaka noho-lani (Heaven-dwelling cloud holder); and so on. The word hi'iaka is not found in Hawaiian dictionaries with a separate meaning, but hi'i means "to carry something," and ka'a means "to move along like a cloud." Another kino lau of Hi'iaka is the pala'a or lace fern, and she is also associated with the 'ohi'a lehua tree. Since the wind can be said to "hold" clouds, and since she went on many journeys, for the Kahilis she represents the element of wind. "