26 Feb 2019 - Arrived at Roswell NM and no Aliens or UFO's in Sight!

26 Feb 2019

We bugged out of San Angelo KOA this morning at 0759 hrs and headed towards Roswell NM.  It was overcast and cool.  This is one of the longest travels days we will have on this trip.  With that, it is a fairly flat drive with a gradual climb from 1544 ft at San Angelo TX to 3573 at Roswell NM.  There was very little traffic along the way.

Some plateau's and rock formations

Large areas of windmills

Oil wells around every bend

The horizontal plastic pipe at the edge of this field is transporting water from central storage pits

When oil is extracted from the ground well, so is a small amount of natural gas. There's no economical way to store and use that natural gas, so it's burned (“flared”) right at the site.  Here are a couple examples we saw:

Many different types and styles of oil field pumpjacks

The soil in northwest Texas has a red tint to it compared to the brown soil of eastern New Mexico

As we crossed into New Mexico, we entered the town of Tatum.  There is a unique shop called Poor Boys Metal Art.  All of the street signs in Tatum are very unique!

East of Roswell we passed a turn-off for the Mescalero Sands North Dune Off Highway Vehicle area.  The is about 610 acres of 90+ ft sand dunes that can be challenged by dune buggies, all-terrain cycles and sand rails.  Sounds like fun!

The scenery was beautiful the further we traveled in New Mexico.    Snow-covered mountains and hills can be seen in the distance.  

Finally, 6 hrs and 19 minutes later we arrived at Roswell NM. We did gain an hour as we crossed over from Central Time to Mountain Time.  319 miles driven today and a couple of stops for fuel and to refresh.  

If you don't know the background of the whole "UFO" and "Alien" history in Roswell, suggest you Google it and read a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident   Basically, in June 1947 a 'flying disc' reportedly crashed on a ranch near Roswell and had been recovered. The government was accused of covering up the incident and stated it was a weather balloon.  The story goes on and on, and so has the popularity of Roswell NM.  We will visit the museum and provide more info and pictures tomorrow.

It did not take us long to find the RV park, although we got busy setting up and then heading to dinner, so we did not get any site pictures taken.  It is a Good Sams RV park, mostly gravel which is common in this part of the country.  Our site is a 90 ft long pull-through and 50A full hookup with free WiFi and cable TV.  We took this picture at the RV Park entrance when we returned from dinner and shopping.

Stats Update:

Campsite#:  16 of 30

# States Traveled Through This Trip: 10

Baseball Parks Visited So Far This Trip:  2 (Houston, Corpus Christi)

Point to point travel miles:  3241 miles

  - Avg point to point travel miles:  216 miles

Vicinity miles:  2841 miles 

  - Avg vicinity miles:  203 miles

Total miles driven:  6082 miles

Total point to point driving time:   62 hrs 27 minutes

Total fuel purchased: 514.407 gals

Total fuel cost:  $1415.28

Average fuel cost:  $2.761

Max fuel cost:  $3.179

Min fuel cost:  $2.279 (Wharton TX)

Average MPG:  11.51 miles/gal

# Nights at end of this stay:  102

Lodging cost:  $2827.83

 - Average lodging cost/night:  $27.41/night

25 Feb 2019 - Goodfellow AFB, Garland Fire Academy, Firefighter Memorial, Ft Concho, Telephone Museum, Downtown

25 Feb 2019

Chilly night at 36F but warmed today to 70F and sunny.  It was a busy day.  We headed into Goodfellow Air Force Base this morning and stopped by the Base Exchange to get a refund on an item and the post office to mail a package.

Goodfellow Air Force Base is the home of the Louis F. Garland Department of Defense Fire Academy. Chief Warrant Officer Garland was the innovator that developed the Air Force fire training program.

This academy teaches the Fire Protection Apprentice training course for the DOD as well as roughly 17 advanced Fire Protection courses.  The Academy provides training to all components of the DOD, including uniformed and civilian members of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and other organizations. They also train international students to build partnership capacity in allied nations.

We stopped by the Academy headquarters building and were given a tour by a Major there. 

Unique podium in their classroom, made of a piece of aerial ladder and diamond plate aluminum.

One of the classrooms and fictitious Norma Brown Air Force Base.  Used for incident management training

As you drive to the Academy you pass by the DOD Fallen Firefighter Memorial, which was dedicated 13 Oct 2006.   The memorial honors those DOD firefighters who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

  All firefighting students pass by the memorial to and from class and when they do, they salute. 

On either side of the memorial are pieces of firefighting apparatus, kind of an outdoor museum. 

1958 H-43B Rescue Helicopter, callsign "Pedro"

A/S32P-10 Forcible Entry Rescue Truck

FTI Pumper

1976 Oshkosh P-4

1980 Oshkosh P-15.  Carries 6100 gal water and 515 gal foam!!

1988 Army 2500L Amertek

1958 O-6

1959 Jeep Dry chemical vehicle

1968 International Harvester Navy Pumper

1966 American LaFrance 530B 

1953 R-2 Rescue Truck

P-13 

After Goodfellow we visited Ft Concho which is one of the best preserved frontier forts in the United States west of the Mississippi dating back to 1867-1889.  It's a 24 building, 40 acre site with a 10 acre parade ground.  It housed  about 350-400 enlisted troops and 35-50 officers, both infantry and cavalry.  Many of the buildings have been restored and were open for viewing. 

Visitor Center building now

Visitor Center building back then

1841 Mountain Howitzer with 2 inch bore

Model 1862 Gatling Gun

Barracks now

Barracks then

Officer's quarters now

Officer's quarters then

One of the Officer's quarters buildings houses the E.H. Danner Telephone Museum!  Mr. Danner worked for GTE for over 40 years and was president for 11 years.  This is his collection:

One more stop in San Angelo - the Miss Hattie Bordello Museum!  Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays, but we walked around downtown and enjoyed looking around.

Beautiful old bank building

Wooden sidewalk as it was 100 years ago

Closed on Mondays!  Dang!

A General Store and Mercantile

The bar is just for show

An old Model T in the store

Ladies of the evening on the upper balcony

That's it for tonight.  Long drive tomorrow, at least long by our standards.  Next report, Roswell NM.  Watch out for the aliens and UFO's!!