A Year in Roswell: June 2008

Always Take the Long Way Home

Thinking it would be a huge mistake to leave the southwest without visiting Pietown, NM, we decided to take the long way home (NM Route 60) and make the Pastry-Pilgrimage. It was worth it for just the photo opps.

This is the Pie-O-Neer Cafe, which was closed. Check out the "Stop" sign in the background. We really wanted to taste their pies, but their summer hours didn't jive with ours. So we settled for the Pie-A-Day Cafe, just down the road. The people there were nice, but their pies were so-so. Krista had Triple Berry (Blue, Rasp, Black) Pie and I had Creamy Pecan, both heated. The Triple Berry was much better. I think the Pecan had been sitting around for a while - not a whole lot of people drifting through Pietown this time of year.

Also along Route 60 is the Very Large Array - a series of huge radar dishes that act in concert as a radio telescope. In addition to making detailed maps of the cosmos, this site was also the background for a couple scenes in Contact starring Jodi Foster. The VLA is featured on the poster for the movie.

Phoenix/Tucson

In Tucson, we visited our friends Lee and Jenny. We also visited BioSphere 2, which was almost as nice as Lee and Jenny's home.

Inside BioSphere 2 we took a tour that was guided by an older gentleman who's delivery was similar to that of a Baptist Preacher. At the end of every sentence he made a little emphasis on the last consonant. Think of a mix between Robert Duvall in The Apostle and James Hetfield of Metallica.

BioSphere 2 is an interesting mix of cutting edge bio-technology and embarassing techno-flops. I mean, did they really thing they could fit the world's entire ecosystem inside a glass bubble in the middle of the desert? That said, it was all interesting and well worth a visit.

This is the Caribbean Sea.

Here are Lee and Jenny the day we went to In and Out Burger - the best fast food establishment ever. Here Lee attempts to taste a chocolate shake and a Half and Half shake simultaneously. We admire his bravery.

And on the 18th of June, we saw Tom Waits at the Orpheum theater in Phoenix. It was a great show. Here's the setlist:

Lucinda
Down In The Hole
Falling Down
All The World Is Green
Misery’s The River Of The World
Day After Tomorrow
Sins Of The Father
Trampled Rose
Metropolitan Glide
Dead & Lovely
Cemetery Polka
Dirt In The Ground
Hoist That Rag
A Little Rain [TW on piano]
Innocent When You Dream [TW on piano]
Lost In The Harbour [TW on piano]
16 Shells
Jesus Gonna Be Here

Encore:
November
Eyeball Kid

Saguaro National Park

Here we are making use (simultaneously) of the available shade in Saguaro National Park. On our way to the park at 6:30AM, the radio informed us that it was already 83 degrees. By the time we left at 9:30 AM it was 97 degrees. It's a warm place.

I know what you're asking: Do the Saguaro Cactus really look as silly as they do in the Coyote and Road Runner cartoons? The answer is yes, they do. With one important exception: they are much, much bigger. They can grow up to 30 feet tall and as old as 200 years.

David confronts a youngin' - maybe 50 years old or so.

This photograph really gives you an idea of how big the Saguaros can get. Not only height, but what girth!

David sits among the cacti...as he is prone to do.

Krista carefully looks for Ocotillo seeds.

This will be the cover for David's greatest hits album.

Gila and Chiracahua

This and the next few blog entries provide coverage of a trip we took just before we left Roswell. I'm writing this in Ohio 3 weeks after the fact and I can't decide if I want to wax nostalgic or dismiss it all as part of the carefree, frivolous life I've now left behind - the slow and easy ways I traded to move back East to be a college professor. It seems so far away now, as I reflect on what I did today. Which was wait in line at the DMV.

Our first stop was at the Gila National Forest in Southwest New Mexico. Deep in the forest are the Gila Cliff Dwellings, which you see here...behind us.

Krista traverses the Gila River.

Many of the best places we visited in the Southwest were unplanned. Such is the case with Chiracahua National Monument, which we had never heard of prior to asking for recommendations at the Ranger Station in the Gila. It was a perfect stop between the Gila and Tucson, our next destination.