 | Day 3 - Roswell, NM to Van Horn, TX |
Day 3 - Mon Dec 22, 2008Roswell, NM to Van Horn, TX - 254 mi
Found an Atlas Missile launch facility online that was only about 20 miles outside the city. Unfortunately the GPS wasn't working, and thre aren't very many roads out there. So the only way to find it was to drive by the odometer, then look for a small cement building with a slanted roof (the stairwell down). Siloworld.com had the gps coordinates and photos of some of the sites. The first one was a site someone had bought and was restoring, so of course they fenced off the whole site and no one can even get close. Yay. So 8 miles further was another site. This one is just cattle graze land, so it's easy to hop over the fence and explore the site. The main silo hatch had an entrance torched in it, but with only one small light and no chance of rescue it wasn't worth the risk to go in. The stairs entrance had been welded shut and then covered with 4" of concrete. Too bad the site is just languishing as graze land. I was freezing as I got to the car where the thermometer read 27 degrees.
Next stop was Carlsbad Caverns, south of Roswell. I had to get there by 2pm for the Kings Cavern tour so I was hurrying through. I got the the visitor center with about 45 minutes to spare. I headed out right away to take the Natural Entrance tour. It's about a mile long, very steep descent through the cave. I had to go pretty quickly, trying to make my tour time which met at the bottom. I didn't have the foresight to bring a clock set to the right time zone, I usually just use the cell phone. Near the bottom is an absolutely gigantic rock that had fallen from the ceiling recently, you could see where the rock had fit into the ceiling. The caverns may not be very extensive, but the scale blows you away. It really is like being inside a very large room, except it's all naturally formed and you're 800 feet below ground. At the end I was unable to complete the Big Room tour since there wasn't enough time before the park closed. As I was on the last path out I was nearly alone in the cavern. I couldn't see or hear anyone, it was amazing.
Heading south I hook a farm road, right at sunset and I was able to make it 58 miles in 30 minutes.
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