Albuquerque: Another Museum You Must Not Miss

By the time we dragged ourselves away from Santa Fe and hit the road for Albuquerque, it was late afternoon.  But who cares what time it is when you're having fun?  And we all had a good time in Santa Fe.
The sky over New Mexico is a scenic attraction in itself.  Partly, it's because there aren't many towns -- you've just got miles and miles of flatlands and mesas and mountains, untouched by human hands.  The sky is a great big playground for the clouds and wind and some of the cloud formations are truly spectacular.  New Mexico isn't a wealthy state, but it is a magnificently beautiful state.
Our motel in Albuquerque was at the edge of Old Town.  We settled into our rooms, enjoyed the company of our trusty traveling companion Johnny Walker, gave Xingxing his dinner and then set out to see what we could of Old Town before it go too dark.
There was a mariachi band playing in the square, and we sat on a bench and enjoyed the music and the general ambience as the sun set.  There were still a few shops open, and Christopher has never met a shop he didn't like. The infinite variety of merchandise in New Mexico is amazing, and so are the usually quite modest prices.
We had dinner at a Mexican cantina, and walked back to our motel beneath a star-studded sky, Xingxing slumbering contentedly in his stroller.
The next day was Thursday, and we had to be back in Scottsdale by midday Friday.  And there was still Acoma to come. We took advantage of our Best Western Motel's generous, free hot breakfast (so we wouldn't have to waste tine eating lunch) and pondered our next move. The shops in Old Town wouldn't be open until 10 am.  So what else was there to do in Albuquerque, this early in the morning?

I was here some years ago and seemed to remember that the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History adjacent to Old Town had an interesting sculpture garden.  It does indeed. And a number of new pieces have been added since my last visit, all of them stunning. The architecture of the museum itself is worth a visit, even if it's not open.  And a sculpture garden is really an open-air museum.  Christopher
 was so impressed by the outside of the building that he wanted to see what it looked like inside, so he went up to the front door to peek in and guess what?  They were open!  Turns out, they open at 9 AM --an hour earlier than most museums.
We browsed the art and ended up in the Museum Shop -- well, where else?  It is an exceptionally tempting Museum Shop.  In recent years, Museum Shops have become a shopping genre of their own, many of the larger ones transmogrifying into sprawling upmarket boutiques.  Every now and then, you find a Museum Shop in a smaller place that is nonetheless amazing.  This was one of them.  If you're ever in Albuquerque -- even if you're not big on museums -- don't miss this museum shop.  (By the way and as long as we're on the subject, another really good museum shop is the one at the Tucson Museum of Art)
The plan was to proceed to Acoma -- where we would do a guided tour -- and then push on as far as we felt like going, perhaps all the way to Flagstaff.

Santa Fe: Art, Shopping, and a New Museum

We stayed in downtown Santa Fe, just two blocks from the green, shady, totally inviting central plaza. Say what you will about the Spanish, they definitely knew how to plan towns.
Xingxing loved Santa Fe -- after all those white sands and little green aliens, he was happy to be back where there were things like sidewalks, grass, trees and doggy smells.  Especially the latter. As everyone who is owned by a dog knows, finding just the right spot is vital when a dog needs to do what dogs gotta do.  And few dogs want to be the first to go where no dog has gone before.  This proved to be a bit of a problem at the White Sands Monument.
But we saw lots of dogs in Santa Fe, which is a very dog friendly town.  And where there are dogs there is an abundance of tempting spots -- in the course of a single block, Xingxing stopped and lifted his leg no less than twelve times, letting everyone know he had come to town.  Someone wrote that dogs write their history in urine.  Xingxing certainly does.
Santa Fe is actually a city, but it feels like a town because there are hardly any buildings over two stories high -- which is delightful, really.  The architecture is Southwest adobe, the colors sunburnt browns and pinks, the population easy-going and relaxed.  Artistic souls are drawn to the ambience, and the local art scene is purely incredible.  So are the shops.  You can buy things here you wouldn't see anywhere else in the world.
Shopping is fine with Xingxing, so long as he can ride in his stroller.  In fact, just about anything is fine with Xingxing when he's in his stroller.  So instead of spending all our money in the Dinosaur Shop, we left Christopher there haggling over a chunk of meteorite on a chain and headed for the newly-opened History Museum of New Mexico.
This three-dimensional, multi-media presentation is not to be missed -- suffice it to say, museums have come a long way since I was a girl!  Touch screens, video commentary, interactives and a simply breathtaking 17-minute film in the Manifest Destiny section combine to make a visit to this museum a feast for the ear, eye and mind.  From the talking petroglyphs to the Pueblo Revolt to the Harvey Girls to the "secret city" of Los Alamos -- what a trip!
My favorite was the room that featured a full-size covered wagon -- the kind the settlers used, coming West -- and a series of voice-overs taken from settlers' actual words.  One woman said, After weeks of travel, we arrive at a city of mud.  Everything is mud.  The streets are mud. The houses are mud. The walls are mud.  Everything is mud.  There is nothing here but mud.
She meant adobe, of course.  But you can sympathize.
We met up with Christopher and had lunch in a courtyard restaurant and bought stuff, and wandered around some more.  I found a bronze statue of a dancing Ganesh, something I have always wanted. I saw one once, years ago.  But it was expensive and I hesitated for several days and by the time I made up my mind to buy it and went back to the store, it was gone.  You see images of Ganesh standing on one leg, and sitting, but rarely dancing. Wouldn't you know I'd find it in Santa Fe? And before we left for Albuquerque, we went back to the Dinosaur Shop and I bought a Tibetan singing bowl.  I have also always wanted a Tibetan singing bowl.
And we had to get this shot of Xingxing and me in front of the skeleton of a prehistoric cave bear. I mean, how often do we get to pose with a cave bear?

So What Really Happened at Roswell on July 7 1947?

Over 60 years ago, something fell out of the sky and crashed on a sheep ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.  But was it a UFO manned by aliens?  Or was it just a weather balloon?
Lt. Walter Haut, a bombardier navigator stationed at Roswell Army Air Field and acting as PR officer wrote the first report about the incident, describing a "saucer" made of some sort of unknown metal.  The next day, General Roger Ramey pooh-poohed this version and told the media the saucer was really only a weather balloon.  But according to W. Glenn Dennis (who was working at the Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell) members of the military had been asking around trying to find youth-sized caskets.  And a friend who worked at the base hospital said he'd seen doctors examining something that was alive, but not human.
The military closed ranks, as only the military can.  For over 30 years, nothing more was heard about the matter.  But in 1980, "The Roswell Incident" by Charles Berlitz and William Moore appeared and the world has been fascinated ever since.
There was so much interest in Roswell and what did -- or did not -- happen there that Haut and Dennis had the idea of establishing a UFO Museum, which opened in 1991 and logged its one-millionth visitor ten years later.  About 150,000 people visit the UFO Museum every month, which is impressive, as Roswell isn't exactly on the beaten track.

The UFO Museum's exhibits include extensive information -- including statements from witnesses, copies of original newspaper reports, a radio announcement and documentation describing the subsequent cover-up -- as well as fascinating material about crop circles and alien abductions. There's also some "fun" stuff, like the flying saucer and animatronic aliens that flash blue lights and belch smoke every hour or so.  And sets from the Showtime Movie, "Roswell".  My personal favorite was the cartoon wall, featuring dozens of cartoons concerning Roswell.  One of them depicts a General asking another General, So why have we kept a weather balloon on a life support system for the past 60 years?
The evidence is pretty overwhelming.  There was a cover-up.  But why?  We're presented with a whole list of reasons.  The government was afraid there would be a panic.  The government was afraid it was all a Russian plot.  The government didn't want to offend people who believed in God.  None of these reasons are very convincing.  So what really happened?  We still don't know.  But as they say, The truth is out there.
Whether or not you believe in UFOs and alien abductions, the UFO Museum at Roswell is definitely worth a visit, even if it involves going miles out of your way.  It is fascinating, and it is fun. There is also an annual UFO Festival, held early in July.  That sounds like fun, too.  And there's quite a good selection of motels (most of them dog friendly) and restaurants in Roswell if you decide to stay over, which we did.
Xingxing toured the Museum in his stroller, and was unimpressed -- probably because there weren't any dogs involved.  If he could have asked a question it would probably have been something like, Why didn't they bring their dogs along with them?  But he cheered up enormously when we reached the gift shop and he was presented with a little green stuffed alien, which he chewed on happily as Christopher and I shopped for souvenirs.

White Sands National Monument

It's called White Sands National Monument, and Christopher expected little more than a statue.  (I don't know what Xingxing expected) But what we found was nothing less than  the largest gypsum sand desert in the entire world.
The white, gypsum sands really are white, spectacularly so. They are arranged in undulating dunes which are constantly on the move, traveling as  much as 38 feet in a single year.  The gypsum comes from the surrounding mountains.  It is leached out by the rain, and flows down the sides of the mountains to collect in pools, where it forms soft crystals as the pools dry out.  The crystals are light enough to be blown about by the wind, and when this happens, they break up into smaller and smaller particles, eventually forming fine, white sand.
People climb the dunes and slide down them and take photographs, but I suspect it wouldn't be all that difficult to get quite lost here, and quite quickly.  Once you're out of sight of the road, it all looks pretty much the same.  Because the dunes are continually moving, the road has to be plowed regularly.
Prevailing winds blow the sands across the flat basin and gradually, as the winds grow weaker, sand accumulates and grasses and other vegetation take root, forming a boundary of sorts. Animals live here -- mostly small, and mostly nocturnal.  We didn't see any of them.
Christopher climbed a dune to see what was on the other side -- more dunes -- but Xingxing and I were less adventurous, sticking to the boardwalk which has been constructed to give visitors a feeling of the desert without the risk of losing themselves in the white vastnesses.
Driving along past all these huge, white mounds of sand was a bit unworldly -- which I guess was a good preparation for our next stop: Roswell, and the International UFO Museum.

Xingxing Hits the Road Again

Our Australian friend Christopher recently paid us a visit.
While he was here, he said he'd like to visit Roswell, Santa Fe and Acoma, all of which are in New Mexico.  So last Saturday we hit the road. Although Xingxing has done one-day car trips -- to Mexico and to San Diego -- he has never actually done a road trip.  And sometimes, he does get car sick.  This is happening less and less as he gets older, but I truly didn't know how he'd handle having to get back into the car and travel for several hours at a stretch, day after day.  I also wondered how he'd feel about having someone else in the car with us, sitting in his seat. However, there was only one way to find out.
Our first day's drive was the longest, from Scottsdale to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  This is a good, solid six-hour drive at the best of times, about the same as amount of driving that it takes to get from here to San Diego. We got a late start and ended up stopping for lunch in Tucson, which made the trip even longer.  Xingxing didn't have lunch (he never does) but he did have a few nibbles of bread and butter, which he absolutely loves.  He also had a drink of water.
This -- I realized after the fact -- probably wasn't the greatest of ideas. But Xingxing was amazingly, incredibly good.  I'd put a little doggy bed in the back seat, and when he wasn't curled up in it he was sitting on Christopher's lap, having a cuddle.  Here in Arizona, it is against the law to drive with a dog sitting on your lap, so simultaneous driving and snuggling was a new experience for him.  He definitely liked it. AndChristopher is a dog person who quite enjoys dog kisses, so everyone was having fun.
Even so, that first day was a long drive.  At dusk, it began to drizzle.  I don't see very well at night, so Christopher took over the driving for the last stretch.  Coming into Las Cruces, there was roadwork, as well.  Really poorly lit roadwork. The last little bit off the exit ramp was like an obstacle course.
By the time we got to the motel it was two hours past Xingxing's usual dinner time -- and he'd missed his afternoon walk.  (It was also an hour later, because Arizona doesn't have Daylight Savings Time and New Mexico does -- but dogs don't have to worry about these human-made technicalities)
Xingxing was unfazed by any of it. He ate his dinner, drank some water, had his walk, did what dogs do, curled up in bed next to me and went happily off to sleep.

United Airlines: Hell in a Very Small Space

We'd booked First Class flights from Halifax to Newark, and then from Newark to Phoenix.
Several weeks before we left home, I got an email saying the flight from Halifax had been changed, and was now a tourist class flight.  I called United Airlines to find out what was going on, and spoke to a representative (who of course, did not possess a surname) who assured me that I would get a refund for the First Class flight I no longer had, and that I still had my bulkhead seat.
Not true.  None of it.
Xingxing and I were crammed into a space so small that if I put both of my feet on the floor in front of the seat there was no room for Xingxing.  There was barely room for me.  They knew I was traveling with a service dog -- suppose he'd been a Labrador?  Where would they have put him?  In an overhead locker?
The airplane wasn't full. I could have been given two adjacent seats -- but a young man (clearly a friend or relative of one of the snotty cabin attendants) carrying one of those huge backpacks -- no way that would fit in an overhead locker -- was given those two seats to himself.  He and his illegal backpack were given every consideration.  I was treated like a piece of dirt.  One of the cabin attendants did her best to step on Xingxing's tail every time she passed.  Xingxing was a really good sport.  Xingxing is always a good sport.
I'm not going to dwell on the Dantean horrors of Newark Airport, or the hostility and unhelpfulness of each and every United Airlines employee we encountered during our very long stay there.  United Airlines employees are not happy people, and they take it out on United Airlines customers.  
Hours and hours and hours later, we were finally in our First Class (but not bulkhead) seats on our United Airlines flight from Newark to Phoenix.  Did I want dinner?  Absolutely.  All that's left is pasta, I was told.  We go by priority.  The other passengers have priority, so they got first choice.  You get what's left.
I always thought a First Class ticket was a First Class ticket.  Silly me! But there is nothing on the United Airlines website explaining that there are different priorities of First Class service.  I didn't realize that I'd paid top dollar for a low priority First Class ticket.
United Airlines doesn't have a Vice President for Customer service.  Instead, they've got a Vice President for Customer Experience.  And he doesn't answer his mail.  He passes it on to underlings, who are as snotty and unhelpful as everyone else.
If you want a "customer experience" fly United Airlines.
As for me, one "customer experience" was enough to last a lifetime.  I will never fly United Airlines again.  If you're smart, you won't either.  Especially if you're traveling with a service dog!

Wet Rocks and an Amazing Work of Art

It's raining, now.
We have the same driver as yesterday.  His name is Mike, and today he's wearing a kilt.  On the way to Peggy's Cove, he tells us how lobster traps are constructed -- with two sections -- and other interesting things about lobsters.  Here, lobster is cheap and common.  Lobster is what you eat when you can't afford anything else.
By the time we get to Peggy's Cove, it is pouring.
Peggy's Cove is a straggle of little wooden houses scattered around a road that winds down to the waterfront where it ends at an enormous restaurant-cum-souvenir-shop surrounded by a parking lot.
Nobody actually knows why it is called Peggy's Cove, or who Peggy was, or even if there ever was a Peggy.
Unlike most of the surrounding area -- which was carved out by the retreating glaciers -- Peggy's Cove sits on a solid granite base, as does the lighthouse for which it is famous.  The red and white lighthouse, the massive granite cliffs and the beach below must be very picturesque when the sun is shining.  Mike tries valiantly to put a good slant on the rain, saying that it adds mystery and atmosphere to the scene.
Xingxing is intrigued by the rain.  He has never seen rain.  He keeps looking up at the sky, and trying to catch raindrops on his tongue.
There are half a dozen tour busses, and a large number of intrepid Japanese tourists with umbrellas swarming over the wet rocks that lead to the lighthouse and stopping every few steps to take photographs of one another.  There's a path down to the base of the cliffs, where there are tidal pools full of sea creatures.  But it's too wet and too crowded to tempt me.
Amazingly, there is absolutely nobody at William Degarthe's house, an unprepossessing wooden structure set down in front of a 100-foot long granite outcrop.  Degarthe was born in Finland, but came to Canada as a young man and became an important artist and sculptor.  He owned an advertising agency in Halifax, but spent summers here at Peggy's Cove.  When he was 70 years old, he decided to "do something" with the granite outcrop in back of his house.  His plan was to create a monument to Canadian fishermen and their wives and children.  Using hammers and chisels, he set to work.  Although he died before he could complete the work, its larger than life-size figures and depictions of fishermen at work and their families presents a poignant and incredibly moving picture of life here at the edge of the sea.  Under Degarthe's hands, the granite comes to life.  I find it much more impressive than the lighthouse.
When you've seen one lighthouse, you've more or less seen them all.  But Degarthe's sculpted masterpiece is utterly unique.  I linger for quite a while before making my way down the road to the restaurant and parking lot.
The time has gone so quickly.  I can't believe this is our last day!