Alamogordo, Day 2

Had another fun day with Mom on the second day of our excursion to Alamogordo.  Breakfast wasn't served until 7 am and since we were both on Central time, we both were up at 5:30.  Instead of getting up, we stayed in our beds and just talked about, well, stuff.  I don't remember what we talked about other than I thought how fun this was to be having pillow talk with Mom.  The one thing I do remember her saying still makes me laugh.  We got on the topic of how we seem to have spiritual experiences on a daily basis since we moved to Seminole and living in a small branch is almost like serving a mission - except I get to sleep with my wife at night.  Mom then quips, "and sometimes at lunch."  I wasn't quite sure how to interpret that so I just let it go.

While at breakfast, we ran into the couple that had given us directions to White Sands the night before in the lobby.  While Mom talked to them, I managed to cook my waffle and gather the rest of my breakfast.  They asked if we had gotten onto Holloman the night before and Mom said that we hadn't.  She then said that the Base holds a lot of memories for her and that she is happy to just leave them there.  (I hadn't thought of that - so much has changed in her life in the last 18 months.  The last thing she would want would be to have her memories changed as well).

We checked out from the hotel and went in search of the chapel.  It was bigger than Mom remembered so we assumed that it must have been a Phase building and they have added onto it over the years.  We then returned back to the main drag to stop by the Visitors Center that we had seen on the way to the chapel.  Mom again had a delightful chat with the two hosts.  She bought a couple of postcards and then we headed off to the International Space Museum at the mountain bench.  We managed to spend about two hours making our way through the museum (admittedly a little disappointed that there wasn't one mention of the work that Dad there at Holloman but he was working on missiles, not rockets. We enjoyed the exhibit outside that showed how satellite dishes collect sounds and then we found the final resting place of HAM, a very famous space monkey buried there under the flag poles.  The wind was really starting to kick up and from our vantage point on the bench, we could slowly see Alamogordo disappearing under a cloud of sand.  We made a not-so-quick stop at the post office so the post cards would have authentic Alamogordo postmarks, stopped at Sonic to get a drink (and some onion rings), and then it was back towards Seminole.