Where were we? Aaahhh yes, the motor home tour of the southwest. A few more days on the road and we make it to our destination. Roswell New Mexico. I knew that I should not expect much, but Roswell really does have a genius working in tourism marketing. We are hot, remember, no air conditioner, and the guys are about to jump out of their skin because WE MADE IT! I notice something unusual with our hotel compared to all of the other hotels we passed, our hotel looked empty, almost abandoned. Lucky us, our hotel is under construction! A large sign posted on the front door reads: POOL CLOSED DUE TO CONSTRUCTION. Really? Have you met my guys? This is not going to work. We had prepaid for our room, so we just had to deal with the fact that for the next two days our guys were going to be pretty annoyed with not having a cool pool to dip into after a long day of alien-festing. I asked the manager when the pool would be reopened because it seemed to me that Roswell was celebrating their high holy days and a pool closure was not to cool for their customers. Amazingly enough she said she would reopen the pool after the construction workers moved their materials, so in about an hour. Wow! Something was shifting in our luck! Everyone was happy! After a dip in the pool and a walk around the construction area we decided to eat out at a local joint called Farley's. We walk past the New Mexico Citadel, down a few blocks to our destination. Parked outside for a display was an old Mini Cooper. Inside there was a large MOTO GUZZI on display. Westley is all about British cars and Italian motorbikes, so we quickly fell into the lull of 'see everything is going to be great from now on'. Farley's is one of those places with loud music, lots of treasures on the walls, and good beer. We enjoyed a few Alien Amber Ale's because the waiter told us we would get a special celebration pint to take home. Cool right? A grown up souvenir from Alienfest. What the waiter did not tell us was that the promotion started at 8pm and ended at midnight. It was about 6pm. The mugs were treated as if they had some sort of value beyond the fact that it was a mere pint glass. Could we just get our pint glass now? NO. Could we pick it up tomorrow? NO. Westley was too invested in these stupid pint glasses now to stop. He wanted one and darn it I was going to get one too. So, we nursed a few more pints to get our reward. The coveted pints finally arrived at the table with little fanfare, I mean really, after all of THAT I sort of expected to have them delivered by a real alien. Yea! We have alien pints.
We got up the next morning ready to tackle Alienfest. The guys wore their creative alien costumes and we were off to our first stop, the Roswell McDonald's. Yes, we were going to McDonald's, but not to eat. The Roswell McDonald's is built like a giant spaceship, it really is an architectural marvel. Inside the McD's is the meet and greet of this years Grand Marshall of the Alienfest parade, Wes Studi. Apparently Mr. Studi was in a popular movie called Avatar, I didn't see it but the kids were excited to meet a celebrity. I was excited to meet him too, remember Mr. Studi from 'Last of the Mohican's' with Daniel Day Lewis? Yea, it was THAT guy! We waited in line and chit chatted with fellow festers. Mr. Studi was very kind and took pictures with anyone who asked. My guys told him they were from California and then Mr. Studi and I talked about Mt. Shasta and the Indian tribes in our area. As we continued up the main street to the Alien Museum I couldn't help but notice there really wasn't much going on. Really? We drove all this way to meet a celebrity in a McDonald's? There had to be more!
Enter the Alien Museum. The museum is in what appears to be an old movie theatre. Inside are displays from alien crashes, alien autopsies, X-files posters, and several foil hats (not really). The displays look like something that weirdo in college would have in their house as ketch, but really it is just sad. The museum had many vendors selling their alien wares. Many abductees who wrote books, conspiracy theorists, alien crafters selling alien statues, and more celebrities! Yes, in the back of the museum you could spend $20 to have a production still autographed by Jullian Sands or Adrianne Barbeau. Westley tells me that he is going to get his picture taken with Ms. Barbeau and tell her that he loved her work in the masterpiece, 'Back to School' staring Rodney Dangerfield. Sure enough Westley returns with a picture of him with the lovely Ms. Barbeau. Apparently he started to chat with her and somehow they got on the topic of British cars, and the rest is history, he had a new pal and a picture he did not have to pay $20 for.
The parade. Yes! This is what we came to see, the big Alienfest parade. A parade of alien related festivities. We had great seats, the weather was surprisingly mild and everyone was happy. This vacation doesn't sound half bad now does it? Remember this is only ONE day. I don't know if because I grew up watching the Rose Parade or the Hollywood Santa Parade (do they still have that?) or living in San Franciso with the Pride Parade, but I expected a little more pizazz. I think our local Asphalt Cowboy Parade was bigger than this! The parade did have a great mix of incredible costumes and just plain old weirdos wearing green pushing their cats in strollers. All in all Alienfest was fun, not really what we expected, but the guys were ecstatic and had a great time, that's what counts right.
Fourth of July, we are heading out of Roswell and driving to Tuscon to visit some old friends. Tuscon is only about 3-4 hours away, so we are excited to have a short day in the motor home. We are about an hour from the Arizona border when the motor home quits running. We were driving along and the thing just comes to a stop, Westley thought that it must have run out of gas. We call AAA and then wait for roadside assistance in the middle of the New Mexico dessert with NOTHING around us. We try and make the best of it and laugh about our situation, how silly of us to think we had survived the worst of our vacation and now would just be smooth sailing. What were we thinking? The guys decided to go on a road side treasure hunt, finding broken truck mirrors and hubcaps. After about 2 hours help arrived in the form of a bright red tow truck with flames on the side. Awesome! The guy gave us some gas and we happily got back on the road. Lucky for us the tow truck driver followed us for a while because what do you know, the motor home died again. Westley and the Tow Truck Driver (TTD) figured that the problem was the fuel filter. Sadly, TTD did not have the correct fuel filter in his truck, but there was a Ford dealer in Lordsberg New Mexico up the road. We knew we would need a hotel for the night, and the kindly TTD called ahead to the new hotel in the area. We then all piled into his giant tow truck, dogs and all for the ride to Lordsberg. Little did I know that this drive was taking us into a circle of hell, the red flags are back. The hotel was surprisingly nice, hey if we were stuck at least we have a nice room! I asked the front desk worker if she could recommend a place for dinner. She suggested the pizza place or a family restaurant called Kranberrys. Yes, Cranberry with a 'K'. Red flag I presume? Both establishments closed early for the holiday, what were we going to eat? What do you know, there is a McDonald's next door. We don't eat at McDonald's. When my guys were little I told them that the hamburgers were made out of ground up old sponges. But, here we are, everything around us is closed, so we went to McDonald's. I ordered one of the salads and the guys all had chicken. We took a long walk around the town and discovered a fireworks store. Did you know that New Mexico has year round fireworks stores? I know! Amazing! The guys have never had the experience of lighting fireworks, so we hooked them up with some explosives and the required sparklers. There was an empty field next to our hotel that we would have ballistic fun.
The following day Westley road a bike down to the Ford dealer. Well look at that, another red flag. The dealer took the 5Th of July off as a holiday too. Yes. We were stuck here for another day. Yea! I noticed two Harley dudes in the lobby, they looked unhappy so I inquired if they were stuck here too. Now we have friends! The Australians were on their dream ride through the Southwest on rented Harley's from Las Vegas. One of the bikes had an issue so they were trying figure out their next move. The Aussies kindly showed us the ropes of being stuck in Lordsberg and pointed out a 'grog' shop (liquor store) and a grocery store not to far from the hotel.
Day 3 in Lordsberg goes much like days 1 and 2. Westley goes to the Ford Dealer and orders new fuel filters, the guys and I hit the pool, gym, and sauna. If it wasn't for the terrible food we could pretend that we were at a spa resort! West gets the part, but discovers there is something terribly wrong with the motor home and has it towed to the dealer. The dealer says they will have the work done by the end of the day and we can be on our way. Right now I just want to get to Huntington Beach to see my Mom and relax. The end of the day arrives and it looks like we will be in Lordsberg for day 4. Day 4 Westley rides down to the dealer and tries to get them to get us back on the road that day, no dice, a part has not arrived and we will be in Lordsberg for another night. Yea! The kids are great, they have cable, a pool, and the Aussies introduced them to this new food item, cup of noodles. Day 5 arrives and we get to leave! We couldn't get out of Lordsberg fast enough. We still wanted to visit our friends in Tucosn, but it was going to have to be short and sweet because we wanted to get to Huntington Beach the next day. Westley is a driving machine, he drove through the night to get us to HB, we were both thinking that as long as we make it to my moms we were safe. Driving at night through the desert was a little scary considering what we had been through. My anxiety level was on high, I kept picturing us stranded in the middle of the night on this dark road next to the border of Mexico. We arrived at my moms around 6am, we kissed the ground! We are safe! After a few days of real relaxation we have to drive the big behemoth back to Redding. We are also taking my Dad's old Tahoe to Redding, so I will follow the motor home, I'll be the support vehicle. West decides to drop the motor home in Vallejo, he can return it to his friend easier from there than Redding. So we pile all of our stuff from the trip into the Tahoe and head home. Everyone is at ease, we are almost home, but this trip is far from over! Yes, about an hour from home we get a flat tire. Seriously! A flat tire? Good grief! We can deal with this. I call my Mom to tell her how ridiculous this is and then she gives me the bad news. The key to unlock the spare tire is at her house. I don't have the nerve to tell West, but let him know. He looks like this is his final straw. I have only seen West really mad once, and I knew we were about to see it again. He crawls under the Tahoe and starts laughing. Great, he is going nuts here. I asked him why he was laughing, and he said the tire lock was never locked! YES GOOD NEWS! Tire changed. Back on the road, and never stepping foot in that motor home again.
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