Where are we?

This whole business of trying to blog as we travel pretty much got kicked to the way side a while back.  I ended up falling behind, which is a shame because we have had many interesting adventures.  We've gone from Branson, MO, to Oklahoma, Arkansas, Dallas, and now we find ourselves in the rather trashy town of Roswell, NM.

Along the way we've met many wonderful people from Justin's mission and we have seen some interesting things here and there as well.  We stopped in El Dorado Springs where I drank some magic waters that will allegedly cure all my ailments, but truthfully it tasted gross, so I'm pretty much convinced that it was bad for me.  

We also visited the town of Marionville, MO because we learned that the park there is home to one of only a very few groups of albino squirrels in the world:

We were able to spot three of them.  We also visited the Wal-Mart museum, in Bentonville, AR, where it all began:

Oh, and visited the first Bass Pro Shop in Springfield, MO:

When we got to Texas to visit Devon and his family I got to sit on a Texas Longhorn.  I had a moment just as a swung my leg over it's back that if this thing turned out to be not quite as docile as it seemed that this could be it for me, but when I mentioned this to Devon he pointed out that I might possibly have ended up on one of those "when animals snap" videos.  Alas, it was not to be, and I continue to live a life of relative anonymity.

This morning we said goodbye to Devon and Annette, and continued on in the wrong direction for some time before we got ourselves straightened out and were able to make the most uninteresting drive ever across the state of Texas on a two-lane highway that Justin deemed to be the best route.  If by "best" he met "ugly and boring" he definitely found it.  We did pullover briefly for me to grab a little wad of cotton from the side of the road.  I had to hurl it out the window though when after making a close inspection of the item it occurred to me that cotton might have a boll weevil in it.  Pretty irrational considering I'd already been sitting there inspecting my find and tugging it off the seed for several minutes, but the mere idea grossed me out so much that I was forced to rid myself of the item immediately.

We have now arrived in Roswell, NM just in time to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center:

The lady at the front desk told us that some people spend all day exploring the museum.  Justin and I found 30 minutes to be pretty adequate.  Tomorrow we visit Carlsbad Caverns!