W
hat would you do if you had thousands of square miles of cheap barren land with very few neighbors—neighbors not bothered by occasional thunderous noises and random debris falling out of the sky? In a place like that, you could embrace big ideas, dangerous and risky notions that lie far outside of the box. In fact, you could take the box, catapult it at supersonic speeds, blow it to smithereens, and then pretend it never existed. That sort of thing has been going on in southern New Mexico since rocket scientist Robert Goddard moved to Roswell in 1930. Goddard was the first person to build and launch a liquid-fueled rocket. With that act, he propelled America into the Space Age. The southern New Mexico desert attracts all sorts of mad scientists, speculators, geniuses, crackpots, dreamers, visionaries, and—some say—even outer-space aliens. If an experiment happens to self-destruct in a shrapnel-spewing, toxic fireball, no one is harmed, and few are the wiser. Such are the perks of exploring new frontiers in the Land of Enchantment. From Portales to Las Cruces, US Highway 70 traverses this strange and secret land. The suspicious, the supersonic, and the supernatural gravitate to the road’s shoulders, launching travelers on a trajectory that lands them in a world of weird science and weirder possibilities. Fire your ignition. Buckle your asteroid belt. And start the countdown to blastoff….
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ortales, New Mexico, marks the perfect place to launch any southern New Mexico weird science trip. This seat of Roosevelt County was home to celebrated author Jack Williamson—honored in 1975 as a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Williamson published his first story—The Metal Man—in the December, 1928, issue of Amazing Stories. He went on to become a monolith among men—a pulp fiction Jedi whose style embraced everything from space operas to dark fantasy. His most famous work is, perhaps, The Humanoids, a 1949 novella that tells the tale of benevolent robots who attempt to protect humans from themselves. In the 1960s, Williamson became a professor at Eastern New Mexico University. He maintained an association with the school until the time of his death in 2006. Today that bastion of learning houses the Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library. Gene Bundy is the librarian who curates the collection. Back in 1967 he was a student, a freshman who enrolled in a course Williamson taught. In later years the two men developed a Corona
Polvadera
Claunch
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“US 70 SPACE ODYSSEY” TERMINI: Portales, New Mexico, and Las Cruces, New Mexico DISTANCE: Approx. 275 miles
friendship. “I was able to accompany Jack to see a Space Shuttle launch,” Gene remembers. “Just to be there, to share that moment with him, knowing he imagined space travel back in the 1930s…. What a thrill!” The library shelves more than thirty thousand titles. I paged through the most massive book I could find: Dahlgren, a confounding eight-hundred-page novel by Samuel Ray Delany. Gene commented, “That book is kind of like [ James Joyce’s] Ulysses. Lots of people start to read it, but few finish.” He suggested an easier read: Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb.
Portales
Debaca 20
54
Elida
380
Lincoln
Coyote
Chaves
San Marcial
Carrizozo
159
Oscura
59
Chloride
Crocker
25
52
Sierra
163
Grant
Caballo
Silver City
Alamogordo
180
Deming
26
Nutt
25
Florida 10
82
Dona Ana
70
Otero 70
506
Organ
Las Cruces
Orogrande 54
Roswell
Caprock
380
Flying H
206
Tatum
172
249
13
Lovington
24
262
125
Dexter
Dunken
Hatch
Milnesand
Cloudcroft
Valmont
Hurley
Elkins
Sunset
Mescalero
Tularosa
Arrey
Luna
San Patricio
70
54
Truth or Consequences 152
48
Ruidoso
Three Rivers
70
Acme
246
380
Dora
Roosevelt
285
Capitan
206 114
Kenna
107 163
70
330
Socorro 55
San Antonio
Catron
Ramon
GATEKEEPER: Gene Bundy is the curator of the Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library in Portales.
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Hope
Hobbs Lakewood
Eddy
82
249
360
180 285
Eunice
Carlsbad 62
Lea
Loving
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