Christmas in Roswell?

Time to travel to Roswell, NM, for Christmas. Some people think New Mexico is a foreign country (after all, Mexico is in the name). I brought my passport just in case. You never know if you will need it to get back to the "real" U.S. How exotic and far away is Roswell? It takes over 12 hours to get there from New Jersey. I can get to Rio de Janeiro in 9 hours, Tokyo in 12 hours, almost any city in Europe in less than 10 hours, but Roswell takes forever. Why? It is in the middle of nowhere. On my favorite airline Continental I need to first fly to Houston, wait a few hours (good time for lunch, excellent restaurants in the Houston airport), and then continue to Albuquerque (another airport with a good restaurant). Then after a few hours wait a small airline called Mesa flies a tiny plane the last 45 minutes to Roswell. Wait … the departure schedule in the Albuquerque airport says the Roswell flight is cancelled? A quick check at the Mesa desk confirms: no pilots are available to fly the plane. Hmmm … should I take the offer of a free hotel room plus a free dinner and breakfast and fly tomorrow at 1:30? And take the chance that they might cancel that flight also? Or should I rent a car and drive the three plus hours to Roswell? Since I only plan three days in Roswell I decide to rent a car and reserve one online (the Albuquerque airport has free internet!!!! Why can't other airports do this?). Now, should I be nice and volunteer to drive the other stranded passengers? Or should I be naughty and simply ignore them? Since I want lots of presents from Santa this year I decide to be nice. Luckily there are only two other passengers going to Roswell that evening. I make them a deal: if they promise to keep me awake while I am driving I will give them a free ride to Roswell. It turns out that they are both singers: one sings in Las Vegas and the other in Nashville. Quite an interesting mix as they kept calling me "the professor" like on Gilligan's Island. They kept up their end of the bargain and played some of their CDs and sang solos. We had a lively conversation to pass the boring time driving through the mountains and across the plains after dark. Finally we get to Roswell and have coffee in the Starbucks in the giant Wallmart parking lot on the north side of town while waiting for their relatives to pick them up. My good deed for the day.