Popped into Alamagordo to catch the Space Museum. It has stuff my folks worked on when at JPL shown (Viking) and a shitload of military rockets out front. The museum looks medium-sized from the outside but is even smaller once you get into the building. It is only $6 a head so it is worth every penny but, considering the size of the building the displays are pretty sparse. The stuff they have is neat but you can easily be in and out in 2 hours. Most of the inside of the building’s space is cleverly wasted on neat sloping ramps running diagonally through the center of the structure such that there is some display space and a myriad of views through enormous glass building walls to the outside.
The museum does have a bunch of rocket engines on display which I found fascinating but may not have had the same effect on Peggy. They also have an Apollo capsule, a tail section from a V-2 and a cutout of the ESA’s space station and a bunch of other pre-1970 technology.
From the museum we popped into a Valero for fuel and Wal-Mart for entertainment prior to returning to Oliver Lee State Park. Once there, we visited the visitor’s center, took a look at the creek behind Frenchy’s cabin and had a possible lebanese woman give us a tour of the old Oliver Lee ranch. This house was almost entirely restored from almost complete ruin so most looks pretty new but the stories about the owner are pretty good. There are rumors of escape tunnels and a pretty good guess he smoked a few folks. Pat Garrett wanted him but was disappointed.