The Van Blog

J.T. and I are the youngest snowbirds I have ever seen, and the whole ‘avoiding-a-freezing-Canadian-winter-by-heading-south’ thing isn’t quite working.  I keep getting caught in cold American places while the temperature in my home town of Kamloops, BC has been above zero for weeks.  Murphy’s Law, I suppose.

So here I am in the southern US in my little old camper van, with no plugs, no heat and a broken fridge.  I’m a recent university grad and I look it; dressed in sweat pants and huddled under old quilts—reading Margaret Atwood books at night by headlamp so that I can live under the warm blankets.  Glamorous?  Hardly, but it’s fun nonetheless.

The comical thing is that in most towns I’ve seen, the other snowbirds are retirees.  There are many north of 60 down here in the Lower 48.  There are frosted perms, matching track suits, and big, BIG RV’s with satellite dishes on the roof and shiny cars hitched to the back.  It’s not the RVs’ size that bugs me—as I’m quite satisfied within my van— it’s the generators!  I sleep at night curled in a ball with three mismatched socks on each foot and white wisps of breath curling toward the ceiling, and I have to listen to generators pump those huge RVs full of heat.  I’d be green with envy if I wasn’t already blue with chill.

The first time this freezing business happened, I was on the Oregon Coast during an unseasonably cold week and there were many jokes made to the tune of “it’s your fault Canadian girl… You brought this with you!”  The next time the weather tried to spite me, I was in the desert in Joshua Tree, California.  Joshua Tree hasn’t seen rain and flash flooding like what I saw since 2005.

Which brings me to the third time:  a snowstorm in Roswell.  I came for the aliens, but all I saw in the sky were flakes.  Many, many flakes.  And snowdrifts, and icicles on the van’s bumper, and people that had clearly never driven in snow before.  It was horrifying, and I took refuge inside an IHOP for awhile and ate my feelings.  I dislike snow;  love pancakes though.  My waitress pointed out that she hadn’t seen it snow that much in Roswell in 16 years.  Maybe it is my fault.  Perhaps I have brought winter with me…

But no snow got in the way of me exploring Roswell.  Aliens!  Crash-landings!  An honest-to-goodness UFO Museum!  Happy TJ!

Coolest museum ever!

There was a lot of information on display inside the UFO museum; a lot of court documents, affidavits, and old photographs.  How could sworn court documents lie?  I’m now thoroughly convinced that aliens exist!

In 1947, a UFO crashed somewhere outside Roswell in the Capitan Mountains.  A guy who was camping with his girlfriend saw the lights and gave a detailed statement in court about how he went to find the wreckage.  He claimed to have seen a destroyed ship, a lot of metal-like debris that was flexible to the touch, and a few bodies in silver suits with tight helmets (he tried to remove a helmet and couldn’t).  They had conical heads, large black eyes, and three long fingers.  This man and his girlfriend loaded up a truck with debris and took it back into town.  He showed it to some of his friends and then left it in the truck. for safekeeping  The truck was stolen, the girlfriend died, and his friends all ended up dead too.  I smell a conspiracy…

And whatever happened in Roswell in 1947 was really good for tourism.  Even the streetlights look like little green men, and the Wal-mart has a flying saucer painted on it.  Capitalism’s a strange thing sometimes.

Anyhoo, I feel I’m satisfied with New Mexico now;  done with snow and ready for Texas!  Back in a few days with new tales from the Lone Star State.

The streetlights in Roswell are cashing in on the crash

An alien body constructed for some old sci-fi film.

Artwork featuring Mulder and Scully has a place of prominence inside the UFO museum.