Carlsbad Caverns and the Worst Campground Yet

Arrg, man - I am so far behind - I keep taking too many panoramas! Well, I'm going to mostly punt on this one. We went to Carlsbad Caverns, and it was really beautiful. I spent 5 hours underground (up to 800 ft down!). Perhaps even cooler was the bat flight. Hundreds of thousands of bats live in the cave in the spring/summer, and at sundown, they come flying out. We were lucky to witness one of the larger bat flights, estimated at 100,000 bats! They exhibit funny flocking behavior that was fascinating to watch. Here are the pics:


Also - don't stay at White's City campground, unless you have an RV or are ready for pretty much a primitive camping experience. The pool was locked, the bathrooms trashed, and for some reason, there was old underwear in the men's shower. I think I would have rather had a pit toilet than be tip-toeing in that pig sty. Oh yeah, and get your stuff out of the way! - they water the pitiful grass field beginning at 8am! Terrible.

Big Bend National Park

Well, well, what to say about Big Bend. It's a little bit like climbing Long's Peak. It was good to go see, I'm glad I did it, but I'll not be in a rush to go back again. Don't get me wrong, Big Bend was a very impressive place - for the effort of getting there though, the ROI might not be high enough. Perhaps a little earlier in the year when it is cooler would be a bit better, with some more wildflowers.

Over 3 days, we explored around three of the major areas of Big Bend. The Rio Grande on the east and west sides, and the central Chisos mountains. We took a moonlit hike down to the Rio Grande, a long hike in the mountains, followed by a dip in the natural hot springs, and explored inside the Santa Elena Canyon on the west side of the park. On the east side, we got to see a great sunrise, and a neat pond on the side of the river. Things are pretty green in the river basin. The mountain hike was a good long one (8.5 miles) and the scenery was pretty good. At one point though, Heather and I were noticing that the mountainside flora was very reminiscent of other places we'd been - spurring her to jokingly say: "We came all this way to go hiking in Southern California?!"

I think the west side was the highlight of the experience for me. Santa Elena canyon is a 1500 ft high narrow canyon carved by the Rio Grande river. With enough pre-planning, people can get permits to raft/kayak down the canyon, including some nasty looking rapids (this might be one of the only things to bring me back here...) It's really neat and spurred a lot of picture-taking. The river was shallow enough that we waded across and I gave "Mi Tierra" a hug on the other side. Soon afterward we saw the mystery river-monster of the Rio Grande, otherwise known as a large fish/eel like thing we saw slowly wiggling through the shallows, which then suddenly thrashed noisily away in a 10ft long ribbon of a splash. One the way out, we also saw a beaver! Other personal first-ever sightings during the visit included a gray fox, a vermillion fly-catcher, and a yellow-necked woodpecker.

The other thing that struck me during the visit was how laughably easy it is to cross the Rio Grande down there. The river is little more than a creek, and we saw several places where Mexicans hang out in ramshakle shelters across the river to sell souveniers to the tourists. One fellow ever regularly crosses the river to sit by a trail and serenade passing hikers. There is nothing clandestine about it - I even saw an inflatable raft sitting 10 yds from the river in plain view. Now, I don't mind all this, and my prevailing thought about the whole thing was that it is kind of silly, that this little stream, which really represents an idea of an obstacle more than anything, can be such a significant division between peoples. Across 20ft and 2 ft of slow moving water, and all of a sudden, the language and money is different, the water is non-potable, and everybody looks at you like you are an invader/alien? What an artificial and absurd situation it is.

Enough blathering - we had great fun, and I'll be chewing on the pictures I took for some time - here's some that are presentable now...

Texas is a b@%*& of a drive

After leaving Mountain View, it was a hard-charging four-day trip to Big Bend National Park. Along the way, we made stops in Bob Sandlin State Park, Austin, TX, and Ozona, TX. The former was a neat park on a lake, but we did little more than crash there for the night.

Austin was more interesting. We got there, unfortunately, right at rush hour. This was a jarring experience, after a solid week of wide open highway and rural roads. Rush hour in Austin is BAAAD! I think rivalling SoCal kind of stuff for density, it's just not as widespread or long-lived. Anyway, after finding a motel and getting some dinner and clean clothes, we headed downtown to sightsee and enjoy the nightlife. I did not notice much of the famed "wierdness" of Austin, but it seems a pretty cool city. An impressive looking capital building, nice skyline, and creative bar scene all mix together in a clean and vibant feeling few blocks. All the bars have a theme, like the surfing bar (The Wave), or the pirate bar, and "The Aquarium", and so on and so forth. Plus lots of live music. After some delicious desserts, is was time to get ready for the next day, which would turn out to be a long one...

Before heading out of town, we wanted to stop at the Cabela's. I needed stove fuel, and Heather was curious. Now, this is one crazy store. They have a two story artifical mountain in the middle with trophy deer, goats, bear, etc.. One the sides, there are "museums" of other exotic animals (zebra, antelope, etc.). A talking deer head upstairs goads people into the laser shooting range, where Heather more than doubled my score, I admit with a red face (I think I had a crooked sight!). All this, and no large canisters of stove fuel! So I walked out after an hour with a good deal on a folding camp chair and a 4 oz canister of fuel - good enough.

We drove uneventfully to Sonora. By this time, I'm getting really hot - no A/C in my truck, so in the midday sun it climbs up to 100+ degrees in there. Just outside town are the Caverns of Sonora. That is a spectacular cave, so I'm going to make that the subject of a separate blog entry. After a tour through the cave, we made dinner and recuperated a little before saddling up to try to make it to Marathon, TX before the end of the day (at this point it is around 5:30) We only made it as far as Ozona, as Heather's car started acting up. A disconcertingly loud clicking/rattle was coming from her car, and she had lost a lot of power. So we limped into Ozona and another motel for the night. The next morning, of course, her car is working well again! We did talk a local mechanic into having a look, but he could not tell anything was wrong. Okay then, on to Ft. Stockton, TX! So, long story short, we wind up getting oil changes after 4 stops looking for a mechanic to diagnose what turned out to be a low-oil level! I had looked at the stick the night before, but it looked full, though very dark. I forgot that if the engine is running, the oil level always looks full. Arrg.

But it all worked out, and that afternoon of April 17, we finally! drove into Big Bend National Park...

The Caverns of Sonora

These caverns were very different from others I had been in, and they are spectacular! It is a small cave, only 7 miles or so in length. But the cave is not as deep underground, and still active. The novel thing about these caverns is that the density of formations is very high - non-stop almost immediately after entry, and it is a tight cave. All the passageways are narrow and just covered in "popcorn", stagmites/tites, and other formations. In places, the ceiling gets a bit higher, and it feels like walking in a slot canyon that is covered in limestone christmas trees and crystals. In one section of the tour, the path leads through what was a geode the size of a dorm room (~8'X10')!

The speed of the tour, lighting and tight spaces made pictures difficult, but I think I got a few good ones to share:

Link to caverns website

Caverns and folk music

After leaving Tennessee, we are generally headed toward Big Bend National Park in Texas. However, Heather recommended a detour to Mountain View, AR. What a neat place! It is a little town in the Ozark mountains, where a whole community of country folk musicians live. The town square is set up with multiple jam spots, where the local artists can come an practice, entertain, and market themselves to what I expect is a substantials crowd of tourists in the warmer months. We took in a local "Hoedown" show , and a night of free music at Jimmy Driftwood's Barn. Sunday was a bit chilly, so we killed a couple hours playing scrabble in one of the only open shops - the Candy Factory! (great fudge!)

The other highlight of this place is Blanchard Caverns. Wow! This is the most visually impressive cave I have seen. The tour led up through two very large rooms (1000ft long, 700ft long) with towering columns, stalagmites, soda straws, curtains, etc. There are water formations almost everywhere you look. We were both taking pictures almost non-stop. This cave has color, too - Really pure, sparkling calcite, rust-stained orange walls, and streaks of gray and yellow in the transitions. The 1.5 hour tour was not nearly long enough. The lighting was a challenge, as always, but I've put up a few of my more pleasing pictures...

Cumberland Caverns

Pretty neat cave with a big chandelier and cool light show. 'Nuff said.

www.flickr.com

The End (technically)

So, technically, I have to say that my Walkabout is over. On a walkabout, one leaves one's home to wander aimlessly(?) and in solitude. I no longer satisfy either of those conditions. Two things have happened:

For one, I heard back from LightFleet, and they offered me the job! Furthermore, I accepted! So, as of May 12, I will be the new Senior Optical Design engineer at LightFleet, in Camas, WA. This means I have a new job, a new home, as well as a definite direction and schedule to my travels now. That takes care of the first condition.

The other thing that has happened this week, well, it's been developing for a while, but the first event above has really brought it home - is that I have a girlfriend! Long story short Heather makes me smile. We enjoy each other's company enough that she has agreed to be a travel companion for the big trip to the Portland area. So, I'm no longer alone on my trip, either.

I'll keep posting blog entries here, even thought the title doesn't fit so well anymore, as I expect to have some good stories to tell. 4000 miles and 4 (or more) national parks to go!