Fort Sumner, New Mexico

After Artesia we headed to Roswell. The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object that crashed. The United States military maintains that what was actually recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to a classified program named “Mogul”; however, many UFO proponents maintain that in fact an alien craft and its occupants were captured, and that the military then engaged in a cover up. The incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name Roswell synonymous with UFOs. It ranks as the most publicised and controversial of alleged UFO incidents.
Well, Roswell was actually very uninteresting and I only got one (faintly) interesting photo….

(Warning (or apology) there are a lot of spots on some of these photos – dead bugs, dust, and other grunge, sorry, no time to edit)

We carried on. It was 84.3 miles to Fort Sumner. They were a very, very lonely 84.3 miles of high plains, straight roads and – wow, well, opportunity….

Bet you’d do this – in England, we call it a TON

Finally, we reached our objective, Fort Sumner.

First stop – the gas station (phew – big relief to find it open as this was a Sunday). We drank about one and a half litres of fluid each then filled up. We asked the guy in the garage about motels; three in town, two mom and pops and a chain – Super 8. He recommended the Billy The Kid Inn so that’s where we went. $40 for a large, uncluttered, exceptionally clean room with all we needed and high speed, secure internet. Booked two nights – then added another.

Next morning, I went to hunt brekky again. It was a mile to the place and a mile back! The cafe, The Rodeo, was obviously the place for the local ranchers. I listened in to them talking about bulls and pie and bbq.