Roswell – It’s Out of this World

Roswell is located about an hour north of the Carlsbad KOA. It is hard to pass up the stop. After all, how often do you get the opportunity to stand next to an alien. The town has embraced its legacy and no matter what your feelings are on the subject, it is a fun day trip.

The two alien museums in town are located downtown the street from each other on Main Street.

Our first stop was the International UFO Museum and Research Center. The admission is $10/person. The museum features newspaper articles and a historical account of the events of July 1947 that started it all. There is a nice gift shop in the museum.

The Area 51 Museum is a fun-filled look at the alien fascination. You enter through Alien Zone (a gift shop). For an admission of $3/person, you can actually take pictures with aliens in different everyday settings. Make no mistake, this activity is for fun. There is nothing scientific about the place, but a level of light-heartedness seems appropriate for the subject of aliens. (It should be noted that several of the displays do have beer bottles in the display. Although we weren’t offended, don’t want people to be surprised. If the kids has been on the trip, we would have just moved the bottle from the scene and taken the picture.)

As you walk down Main Street, there are antique stores, gift shops and other stores. We looked through several of the them.

After our out-of-this-world visits, we decided to have lunch at the Cowboy Cafe on 2nd Street. Great food, great service! Definitely the place to eat while in Roswell. Don’t forget to try the Chicken Fried Bacon. Yeah, who knew that battering and re-frying bacon could be so good!

Our final stop on our day trip was the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge offers a variety of options: a car tour, nature trails and bike trails. The day of our visit was cloudy and cool, so we opted for the car tour. Be sure to stop at the visitor center to get a brochure and look at the displays. There is no charge for visiting the Refuge. As we drove around the loop, we saw Snow Geese, a hawk, and a variety of ducks. It is an easy drive and a pleasant way to spend an hour.

The downtown area of Roswell is parallel parking and we did see a couple of Class C RV’s. The Wildlife Refuge would be tight in the parking lot for an RV.

The Carlsbad KOA is a great place to stay during your trip to Roswell.