Day 19: Las Cruces, NM to Roswell, NM

Stops:

White Sands Missile Range, NM

White Sands National Monument, NM

Alamogordo, NM

Ruidoso Downs, NM (Hubbard Museum of the American West)

White Sands Missile Range is hugely known for testing the world's first nuclear bomb which was eventually used against Japan when it was dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the form of bombs known as "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" respectively.  The project was code named "Trinity" and WSMR was ground zero, well actually 88 miles from WSMR.

When approaching the military base, there are signs warning to stay on the road as there may be explosives scattered in the desert off the road and also radioactive parts.

One must get out of the car and go to the reception office where you must present a valid form of ID, like a drivers license.   Then you can get a pass which which allows you to walk over to the guard gate and they let you walk into the base.  Photography is only allowed at the museum and missile display.

Here, you'll recognize some of the missiles if you have paid any attention to the news or played combat games on your PC or video game console.  They had Patriot missiles a.k.a SCUD Busters used in Operation Desert Shield, sidewinder missiles, Nike Ajax missiles, Pershing missiles, and plenty of other surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles. 

They even had the type of bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.  Can you tell, I played plenty of combat games and flight simulators growing up?  They had some great examples of guided and unguided missiles.  Guided missiles use a laser guidance system to adjust the flight course with pinpoint accuracy, some have countermeasures as well, and some the capability to look like a small aircraft to incoming radar.

They have an item that looks like a UFO to many, but it is a weather ballon used for a decelerator test.  I'm almost sure many of the UFO claims are based on this weather balloon.

Finally, they had the V-2 missile, originally known as the A-4 missile, which was German designed and was used by Hitler, but was considered a failure.  The US used it for experiments in space including the launching of a Rhesus monkey into space.

On the way to White Sand National Monument, we had to go through a Department of Homeland Security checkpoint to make sure we were legal residents of the US.  

White Sands NM is blindingly white.  So blinding that I cannot even see the pictures I took on my digital  SLR.  White Sands is the world's largest concentration of gypsum dune fields.  The animals have adapted to the white sand changing their colors to very light or almost white themselves.  We say a few whit lizards scurrying across the sand.

White Sands is known for sledding too.  We saw quite a few people sledding and even tried it ourselves.

B spotted an egg, either hawk or snake, not sure.  We showed the picture to the ranger and they think it is one of those.  The yucca plant grows around here, sometimes having roots that are 15 ft deep and a stem that is 10 feet tall.

At the visitors center, there are barn swallows everywhere.  We even spotted a nest with babies in it.

Finally, we stopped in Alamagordo, NM and Ruidoso Downs, NM to get the scrap metal Roadrunner and the horses, before finally arriving to Roswell, NM where it was a mild 100 degrees.  We actually took some downtime here to do some laundry and saw a cool alien mural.  I'm sure we will see a lot more alien stuff tomorrow.