Spring River Park and Zoo

Lori and I both love to go to the zoo.  Me, I’d personally like to be closer to the animals (c’mon, who doesn’t want to hug a tiger?), while Lori is more the safe distance spectator.  If you are near Roswell, NM check out Spring River Park and Zoo.  This is a wonderful park that has a modern, small zoo covering about 34 acres of parkland with five main zoo areas located on the grounds. These areas include:

Some of the highlights of the Capitan Trail include the River Bottoms Exhibit in which several of our small native animals are showcased against a red clay river bank including foxes, bobcats, and raccoons. Further along is the wonderful natural Plains exhibit with bison, prairie dogs and burrowing owls. The prairie dog town features about 80 of these fascinating critters descended from a dozen or so animals brought here when the nearby Wool Bowl Stadium was built.

The Coyote Country and Wolf Woods each cover 2,500 square feet exhibits across from a large paddock where the deer and the antelope play! The trail culminates in the spacious, naturalistic enclosures of the Mountain Habitat housing mountain lions and black bear. 

The Children’s Zoo features a variety of animals that are child friendly including lemurs, birds of prey and a herd of pigmy goats.

The developing World Safari Exotics area contains a few large cats.  The cougar was the only animal on the prowl during our visit.

The ranch area has Texas Longhorns and miniature horses. The replicated ranch house façade has many of the types of plants and flowers our grandmothers planted around the ranch houses at the turn of the century. The World Safari is planned around the existing train track and currently houses South American Llamas.

Visitor service area with the concession, miniature train and antique wooden horse carousel

Unique to our Spring River Park is the antique wooden horse carousel located in the heart of the park. This rare treasure is one of about a hundred left in the country and features hand carved horses from various artisans and even a few from foreign countries. People come from all over to see the carousel on their travels.  The park has seasonal concession services so check before you go.

A miniature train was added in 1976 to give rides around the park and has become a popular tradition. The park also features a small lake, covered picnic shelters, an accessible play ground and shade trees for the visitor’s comfort. At Christmas time the park transforms into a small Christmas village and the Roswell Christmas Train provides transportation.  During the holiday season there is food and entertainment in the park each day.

International UFO Museum and Research Center

I’ve probably mentioned, several times, that most of my adult life was spent in the birthplace of Benedict Arnold.  It always amazed me that the city cannot make any decisions that benefit the tax payer.  Well, he was a traitor you say.  I will quickly point out that Salem, MA makes millions off of its history of the government approved murders if innocent people who were accused of being witches!  Winslow, AZ is on the rebound thanks to its decision to popularize itself on a quick mention in the Eagles song “Take it Easy”.  Well the winner of the ‘spin it to your benefit’ contest is Roswell, NM.  By the way the correct pronunciation is “Rozwell”.  Roswell, NM should be a stop on any travel list.  There is a lot to do and plenty of restaurants to enjoy, we recommend “Pepper’s”.  The most obvious stop when in Roswell is the International UFO Museum & Research Center.  The center is right in the downtown district and is surrounded by UFO themed gift shops. The center is focused largely on the 1947 Roswell Crash and later supposed UFO incidents in the United States and elsewhere. The center was founded in 1991 and is located in a former movie theater from the 1930s. The museum contains an extensive library and exhibits all focused on the history of UFO encounters.

For those who are unfamiliar with the ‘Roswell Incident”, an unidentified flying object crashed on a ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, sometime during the first week of July 1947. Rancher W.W. “Mack” Brazel said later he found debris from the crash as he and the son of Floyd and Loretta Proctor rode their horses out to check on sheep after a fierce thunderstorm the night before. Brazel said that as they rode along, he began to notice unusual pieces of what seemed to be metal debris scattered over a large area. Upon further inspection, he said, he saw a shallow trench several hundred feet long had been gouged into the ground.  A day or two later, Brazel drove into Roswell, and reported the incident to Sherriff George Wilcox, who reported it to Maj. Jesse Marcel, intelligence officer for the 509th Bomb Group, stationed at Roswell Army Air Field.

The debris site was closed for several days while the wreckage was cleared, and Schmitt and Randle say that when William Woody and his father tried to locate the area of the crash they had seen, Woody said they were stopped by military personnel who ordered them out of the area.

The military has tried to convince the news media from that day forward that the object found near Roswell was nothing more than a weather balloon.

USS Lexington

USS Lexington is a decommissioned US Navy Aircraft carrier that is on display in Corpus Christi, TX.  As an active ship Lexington was launched on 23 September 1942 at Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA. During World War II she was the recipient of 11 battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation. Following the war, Lexington was decommissioned, but was modernized and reactivated in the early 1950s. In her second career, she operated both in the Atlantic/Mediterranean and the Pacific, but spent most of her time, nearly 30 years, in Pensacola, FL as a training carrier. Lexington was decommissioned in 1991, with an active service life longer than any other Essex-class ship. Following her decommissioning, she was donated for use as a museum ship. In 2003, Lexington was designated a National Historic Landmark and is the oldest remaining fleet carrier in the world.
While still active, Lexington, with the blessing and cooperation of the Navy, served as a filming location at sea for two different films. The films were the feature movie Midway and the TV miniseries War and Remembrance. In both cases, she was altered to the extent possible to resemble other vessels, Enterprise (for War and Remembrance) and Yorktown (for Midway) by adding antiaircraft cannons and operating World War II-vintage Navy aircraft. As a museum Lexington was also used (though tied up to her pier) for filming of the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, where she was altered to resemble a Japanese carrier, as well as Hornet.

Lexington is set up with 5 self-guided tours that are easy to navigate. Given that you are in a shipboard environment and you will need to navigate narrow passages, ladders and ship hatches which are designed with the sole purpose to damage knees and noggins. The five different routes cover 100,000 square feet and eleven decks, so you get to see a good portion of the ship. You explore at your own pace and will discover the many stories behind the ship. You can tour in any order, but make sure you see it all. Each tour is unique and features interactive displays to take your adventure to a whole new level. If you have questions along the way, look for “yellow shirt” volunteers (many of whom served on USS Lexington!) They know all the ins and outs of the ship and are happy to assist you.

Since you enter the ship on the hanger deck this is the tour route you are likely to take in first.  During wartime this deck stored as many as 60 aircraft. Maintenance, refueling and rearming of these aircraft took place here. Unchanged in size since WWII, the hangar deck measures 654 feet by 70 feet, is 17.5 feet high, and covers 40,000 square feet. The deck is divided into three bays that could be sealed off by electrically operated fire doors. Each bay contains its own conflagration (CONFLAG) station for station damage control. For an extra fee there is a 15 set F/A-18 flight simulator that you can experience.

On the flight deck tour you will see how high-speed catapult launches, arrested landings, air operations and aircraft refueling all took place on this 910-foot long and 142-foot wide airport. The original flight deck was a long rectangle but jet aircraft demanded a separate landing and take-off area, so in the 50’s the ship underwent major modifications including the angled flight deck, which allowed her to serve another 36 years. Points of interest on deck are take-off and landing control stations and arresting gear, anti-aircraft gun mounts and many vintage aircraft.

The Foc’sle (Folk’Sell) tour takes you through the forward part of the ship and consists of those decks just below the flight deck. Foc’sle is a vernacular for forecastle, a forward upper deck area that extends to the bow. The Foc’sle Tour begins on the starboard side of the hangar deck towards the bow (front of the ship). The forecastle is the area of the ship where the equipment to raise and lower the anchors is located. Anchoring was a complex maneuver performed by boatswain mates (“bosuns”) who operated and maintained the equipment. The anchoring process was precisely coordinated between the bridge and the foc’sle. In addition to this equipment, the foc’sle area is now used for various exhibits.

The gallery tour takes you through the warfighting part of the ship. This is an area where information is gathered and evaluated and battle plans are formed. Since Lexington served over a long period of time and underwent many overhauls and conversions she had several different configurations.  Each display takes the time to explain what era you are looking at and what the area was before that conversion This tour area is below the flight deck and consists of the Combat Information Center (CIC), which collected and evaluated all information on the status of USS Lexington, other friendly ships, and enemy forces. The CIC directed the ship’s performance in close coordination with the air operations center (AirOps) and the carrier air traffic control center (CATCC) next door.

In the lower decks tour you will learn how USS Lexington was powered by one of the most efficient and dependable propulsion systems ever installed on a U.S. warship. The power plant consists of four turbine engines fired by eight boilers, that created 150,000-horse power and a top speed of 33 knots. Since I have experience in Naval Engineering I was disappointed that more of the engineering spaces are not available for tour but I think this is an area where the general public would have little interest. Also on this route see how the up to 3,000 crewmembers lived during months at sea. This tour route also has the “Warbirds & Warships Scale Model Gallery”.

A MEGAtheater (similar to IMAX) was added in the forward aircraft elevator space. Lexington was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. The ship is carefully maintained, and areas of the ship previously off-limits are becoming open to the public every few years. One of the most recent examples is the catapult room.

Art Museum of South Texas

Let’s face it; I’m not a big fan of art.  The only thing I know about it is that some of it looks good to me and some does not.  I don’t have any clue what the artist was ‘feeling’ or what his motivation was (other than to make enough money not to starve). Since I have retired I have, for some reason, found myself in a number of art museums.  One reason is that it is usually an inexpensive way to whittle away a good chunk of bad weather day.

The Art Museum of South Texas is in the SEA (Sports, Entertainment, and Art) district of Corpus Christi.  The museum is associated with Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and focuses on fine art and craft of the Americas with particular interest in Texas and surrounding states, including those in Mexico.  The museum has been in operation since 1945 starting as Centenial Art Museum.  It moved to its current location in 1972 and had its opening festival at the new location in October. In 1995 the Legislature of the State of Texas appropriated special funding to have the Art Museum of South Texas affiliated with Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and administered as a cooperative joint venture.  The museum underwent a major expansion in 2006. The expansion was designed by internationally renowned architect Ricardo Legorreta and doubled the gallery and exhibition space of the Art Museum. The expansion was funded by private sector donations and community support.
I really liked some of the art and sculpture in this museum.  It was aesthetically pleasing and really required no interpretation.  There is very little modern or abstract art and when there is it is easy to ‘get’, like the big ball made of folding lawn chairs!