“How would you feel if I told you we could add two hours to our driving time and get to meet some aliens along the way?” I whispered to Dave over breakfast.

“Um…”

“Don’t answer yet,” I continued. “You see, I had a look at a map and discovered that we can actually drive to Alpine via Roswell! You know? ROSWELL! Land of the aliens!” 

Dave stared at me with a blend of frustration and amusement.

“Please please please please please!” I begged. “It’ll be so much fun! I promise.”

And so, we went to Roswell.

 And it was just how I imagined it would be.

The storefronts were alien themed and the restaurants served alien burgers. There were parking spots reserved for aliens and even the lampposts were shaped like alien heads.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

This was going to be a lot of fun.

I arrived in Roswell an open-minded skeptic. I thought that all of the UFO craziness was most likely nonsense but I was happy to be convinced otherwise. In fact, I was almost certain I’d be able to be convinced of it — after all, I’m the girl that gets spooked over ghost stories but doesn’t believe in ghosts…

Dave and I made our first port of call the UFO Museum so that we could get some research done.

I was ready to hear the facts, read about alien experiences, and have my mind blown.

I was ready to start believing.

Oh!

Well… um… this wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

It was ridiculous.

People in tie-dyed shirts hid out in corners, comparing their favourite abduction story in hushed tones.

There were glow-in-the-dark paintings of spacecraft racing through galaxies, giant disco ball UFOs hanging from the ceiling. There was even an enormous horse covered in newspaper clippings.

Random physics terms were thrown onto posters with little explanation, “How did they get here? ANTIMATTER REACTION! GRAVITY AMPLIFICATION! INTERSTELLAR CRAFT!”

And then the beeping and squeaking from the centre of the room would start up, as smoke began to gush out of a flashing, rotating UFO.

 

And then I just couldn’t take anything seriously.

We left the UFO Museum in search of even more tackiness and fortunately stumbled right into Alien Zone. For just $3 we ended up having the most fun of the entire road trip.

Alien Zone is essentially a big room with aliens in all kinds of bizarre situations — and you can pose with them!

Here are some of my favourites.

And that was Roswell!

It was corny and cheesy and tacky and so ridiculous, and yet as Dave and I climbed back in the car to head down to Texas, we couldn’t wipe the smiles from our faces.

It was so worth the two hour detour.