Roswell

The truth is out there...and sometimes the truth is painful.

Rating:

This place was a real ball-buster. No beer for you, Roswell! We wouldn't even recommend this place to your ex-wife or mother-in-law.

We are a little nerdy (you are like, "Noooo", and we are like, "yep, its true") so we were both really looking forward to seeing Roswell. Admittedly we may have set the bar too high, but the disappointment we encountered was a real trip crusher. We rarely have negative things to say (passive aggressive sure, all the time, but rarely negative), so bear with this review, it is honest and real and has things you need to know.

Roswell was a bust from the time we got close to town until we left, it was one disappointment after the next.

SLOW DOWN!!! Roswell is in the middle of nowhere and you have to travel through little towns to get there that are notorious for BS (BS does not stand for Boy Scouts) speed traps - they got us for $200 - 26 mph in a 25 mph zone.

These little towns gave out more than 100,00 tickets to out of town residents last year.

Don't feed their dirty habit.

Our hopes of tacky & kitchy were quickly replaced by the realism of a town that was clearly over the "alien landing site" lore. We found the town to be somewhat themed "Alien Landing" with the street lights (see below) and other signs and names. Don't get us wrong, some businesses like McDonalds embraced the fun and really went all out, but quickly you could see that these civic "improvements" were overshadowed by the lack of any real effort.

It was surprising that so little effort is made to be inviting to tourists as this is the town's primary source of income.

There is an official Roswell museum and it is small and lackluster. It was mostly filled with informational plaques and pictures of things in the 40's but not necessarily "alien confirming" news. There were a few hardcore believers wondering around, and they were fun, but you can't give the town credit for them. We were hoping to see some "wreckage" or at least something made to look like wreckage, but it was a just a U-shaped hallway with miniature models and artist renderings. The most exciting thing in there is an 8 ft wide miniature spaceship with rubber aliens that lets off steam and flashes lights every 15 minutes. One word to describe this, "cheesy". We liked this part, of course!

Other businesses in the neighborhood include several t-shirt and memorabilia shops that were less alien and more skulls, puppy shirts, biker gear, and tobacco grinders... what ever that is for (wink).

We were also looking forward to "The Alien Zone" about a block from the Museum. We walked up to find a sign on the door regarding the hours showing the business was open from "10am to whenever they leave". We were there around noon so it must have been a really short day or everyone was abducted by... well you know.

We stayed the night at the Roswell RV Park and this was a very clean and well ordered park. Nice and quiet, wide spaces, and very accommodating. Truly a nice place. Our one tip is not to spring for the cable fee. When you plug in you get a grand total of one channel. It was the perfect end to the perfect day as we sat down with a warm beer to watch a 2 hour documentary on the making of cheese.

Driving out of Roswell was like a scene from the Twilight Zone as we drove through dense fog for 200 miles. Yes, the photo below is our view for 200 miles at 60 MPH - and we were getting passed by drivers doing 80 MPH that quickly disappeared into the fog ahead. It was the most intense driving Randy Randerson has ever done and he used to be a stunt driver for a Mexican rodeo... Okay, we made that job up, but it still adds something to the story. This was wheel-gripping terror and seemed to last forever.

Like the happy camper hicks that we are, we did enjoy all of the true believers wandering the town streets barefoot and muttering to themselves... wait, maybe they were just bums, whatever. We recommend taking the kids to McDonalds when it is dark outside because they light it up like an alien ship and make it fun. It is a UFO-shaped building and make sure to take a peek into the kids' zone to see the aliens in there. There were no special names for their food which we really think they missed an opportunity there, but we have to give them props for at least going with the theme of the town.

If aliens did land here, we doubt they will be back and we doubt we will be heading that way again either. If you have gone or go and have a better experience, we would love to hear about it. Share your stories.