A little more Roswell

20 May 2010-Started the day at a small museum today, in a house that was turned over to the city by the grandchildren of the original owners. The house was built in 1912 by James and Lou White, who wereup and coming citizens at the dawn of the city.

Like Mississippi, back in the old days homes were taxed on the number of rooms they had, so although this house has a total of 14 rooms, it had almost no closets. The bottom floor of the house is pretty much maintained as it would have been back in the early 1900s, with a lot of the furniture the original furniture actually used by the Whites. Mrs White lived in the house until she died in 1972.

I loved the above staircase, and the dining room was really nice, but what stood out were the lights hanging in each room. The lady giving us the tour told us that to make sure electricity wasn't just a "fad", the Whites had candles built in top of the light fixtures.

A few pictures of items in the kitchen: the 1st shows a stove and a water heater, with a pressure cooker beside it.

Then here they showed us 2 different "washing machines". And the 1st picture also has a butter churner beside the wash tubs.

And this is an old-style scale. You had to step up a good 6 inches just to get on it.

There was a lot more stuff, but nothing we hadn't seen before, so we went up to the 2nd floor. They had a mish mash of stuff on this floor, nothing to do specifically with the owners, more about the period of the early 1900s.

They had a war room that included pictures of the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII, many of whom came from New Mexico.

They had a sports room because Roswell won the Little league World Series in 1956.

This area was set aside for entrants to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

And this was probably the most interesting display. This shows how women, wearing the oh-so fashionable corset, actually had their rib cages deformed and sometimes broken by them.

Again there was a lot more in this house, but I only have so much time and room here (haha).

After getting an early dinner we went over to a city park our RV park owner told us about. This park is right in the center of the city and includes not only a little lake, but a small zoo.

The most interesting thing about this zoo is that all the animals here have had something happen to them that doesn't allow them to be returned to the wild, AND they are all supported individually by different people that live here in Roswell. So they are essentially adopted by people who then pay for their care, feeding, etc.

Entrance to the park/zoo is free...you just walk right in and either hang out by the lake or check out the animals. I love this concept, it would be a great place for young kids. Here are a few of the animals...not anywhere close to all that were there.

This white peacock jumped up on this truck to try to either mate or pick a fight with the other peacock that was already up there on the left side. And we were walking around and surprised this other peacock, who immediately flared his feathers at us.

These little prairie dogs were rampant in the park. They dig a gazillion holes in the ground and tunnel all thru the park. (These are not injured animals, they are just there.)

And here we have a "Burrowing Owl", sometimes called a "Ground Owl", who was just the cutest thing. I don't think you can tell from the picture, but he was probably only 6 to 7 inches tall, and he lives below-ground also. I read on-line that they are an endangered species that, if found, will usually be around other burrowing animals like the prairie dog.

We are off to Santa Fe tomorrow for a few days. Hoping the weather is as nice as it has been here the past 2 days. TTYL