Roads Less Traveled Can Lead To Being Lost In a Good Way

Living home free has its moments and on February 18^th there were a lot of them. I've been craving IHOP for months and decided that I was going to give into it in the town of Alamogordo, NM. Had the most delicious peach stuffed french toast that I almost couldn't finish. 

Victoria was a great trainee waitress who will be working the grave yard shift if she can handle it.

From there I went to McGinn's pistachio nut store. Where the worlds largest pistachio nut is. Don't listen to your GPS on this one. As it will try to take you to the farm across the road from the store. Inside you can sample different flavored pistachios and taste some wine. 

If I had a bit more money I would have gotten some of the chocolate and chili nuts and some of the margarita and lime ones. I did get a few post cards and a pin with the nut on it. Very friendly place.

Got a bit lost trying to find 70 east as I turned right instead of left out of the store. Once I got myself turned around and headed the right way I was able to see several historical markers along the way.

One of which is where Billy the Kid was still on the law abiding side and tried to help his friend arrest a couple of fellers.

I've added the Billy the Kid museum to my list of places to go to for my next time through. 70 is a beautiful hwy that is often just two lanes of traffic. I also want to go to the Inn of the Mountain Gods. There was still snow on the top of the mountain but I want to try a zip line and theirs is almost and hour long tour. 

Arrived in Roswell, NM. The UFO Museum and Research center is pet friendly and Marcuz the ferret was the only one awake so he got to go in with m

 

The Museum cost $5 and the only place you can't take pictures is in the gift shop. The people were friendly and couldn't get enough of Marcuz.

According to http://www.atlasobscura.com the McDonald's there was the only one built in the design of an UFO but from what I saw it has been redone on the outside to look more modern. The inside has lots of chrome. My only complaint about Roswell is that the internet sucks there and it is almost impossible to get online.

From there I was going to camp at a place in Kent but ended up on some really back road that was a truck route as well. I normally don't drive at night as the lights bother me, but I forgot two things one GPS can suck if you lose data connection, and time change.

So I was going by my van's clock not the phone's. I ended up in the middle of some where in TX heading west on I 10. I got off on exit 176 and somewhere around there is suppose to be where I was going to camp. As it was I spent the night at the abandoned gas station there.

I can't say I really slept as it is between I 10 which was heavy with truck traffic and the railroad tracks. 4 trains went through that night.

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise and the realization that I spent more on gas than I had intended leaving me with $8 and some pocket change and a ¼ tank of gas. I got headed back east and at exit 42 found a couple of places with gas at $1.75 a gallon. New destination Odessa, TX and hopefully some way to earn some money to get me to my beach.

Jo