USA Road Trip Day 5 ……. Artesia,TX to Sedona, AZ

….first stop (actually just a few quick pics) in Roswell > for those of you who do not believe in aliens it is considered to be “the world’s most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim”, nevertheless the true believers continue to be convinced that the government covered up an alien landing……afterall, this is America the land of conspiracies !!

 

 

 

As we pushed towards the Texas/New Mexico border there were still a lot of rather tawdry looking homesteads…

………however once we were beyond the oil and gas fields this mostly desert like territory became a pleasant drive along secondary roads, as we were not keen on the Interstate…..given the speeds allowed, it is not a significant time difference but a more appealing drive.

We dropped into the Valley of Fires Recreation site…..

…… noticing a curious black band of rock running through this area….. it turned out this was due to a flow of lava from an eruption some 5000 years ago !!!

We passed through a number of towns notably Lincoln the most widely visited state monument in New Mexico and part of a community frozen in time—the 1870’s and 1880’s. The historic site now includes some 17 structures …..

As well as more modern structures such as the Very Large Array near Magdalena, NM…..the VLA is an array of 27 radio telescopes observing together as if it were a single telescope many miles across. They make key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discover magnetic filaments and trace complex gas motions at the Milky Way’s center, etc….interesting and beyond my grasp. The remote location and an altitude 7000 feet above sea level makes the location attractive to astronomers.

We also passed the White Sands Test Facility which is a rocket engine test facility but was also the site of the world’s first nuclear bomb test explosion……would have been interesting to visit, but unfortunately, no time.

From here on it was basically a non stop drive (save for several pit stops) as we raced across this attractive area …..

… then descended into the Sedona area where we were treated to the spectacle of these red colored sandstone hills (no pics until tomorrow). Finally after some 10 hours and 575 miles (925 kms) we reach Sedona, a little pooped … checked into the Baby Quail Inn …..had dinner and called it a night.