El Paso, El Paso

Bee Sting

Travelling on business implies frequent-flyer miles and expense reports, but my father’s regional accounts just as often meant driving from one college campus to another persuading academic scholars and research fellows that the scientific equipment his company offered superseded any other current technology.  In the twentieth century, top-of-the-line technology changes daily, but in the mid-seventies, when criminology could be branded closer to “Quincy” than to “CSI,” my Dad knew his stuff and his Southwestern road trips sustained our family and occasionally served as the back drop to our summer vacations.

When his traveling road show took our family to the western tip of the Lone Star State, we visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park (see “Hidden Beauty” from March 2012), and several other places that I recall savored of beauty and adventure, places where the sites provided more than ample reward for the time in the car, and places that I would visit again with my own children.  And then there was El Paso, Texas.  I have one vivid memory of the town across the Rio Grande from Juarez: my first bee sting.  Let’s just say the sting of El Paso stayed in my memory for quite a while.

Smoke Across the Border

 

I admit there are cities I plan to see, but flight schedules and itineraries often negate the opportunities, like Oakland and Spokane, Pittsburgh and San Antonio.  And to get to Carlsbad Caverns, El Paso or Midland would have to serve as the rental car pick-up and drop-off point and little else.  Recalling my first experience in El Paso, I site, just  seriously contemplated Midland, but price trumped memory and so my flight touched down hours from my final destination. Once I exited the plane in this 600K+ city, I was refreshingly surprised to find rental cars on out the doorway of a delightfully small, yet fully-functional, well-themed terminal, and a charming place from which to depart on my three-day adventure.

 

Across the river into Ciudad Juarez, smoke from a distant fire rose into the smoggy horizon, yet to the east, I drove past a dozen landmarks I had eyed from my airplane window: wind turbines, and mountain peaks, green pastures and sharp bends in the road. As I approached El Capitan of Texas and the highest points deep in the heart of

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, I witnessed and recorded an entirely unique view of this corner of the oversized state, and carried away a distinctly altered view of the city with which I often associated unhappiness as a child.  And when I returned to the border city forty-eight hours later, the smoke still rose on the horizon beyond the Big River.  Perhaps some things linger longer than they ought.

Changes In Rank

My Favorite National Park

Knowing that I am a national parks junkie, from time to time friends inquire what national park tops
my “most favorite” list.  Of course, since I recently gave up making lists (see “Forgotten,” August 2012), I rarely have a ready answer.  Sometimes the most recent park I have visited gets special billing, other times I consider which has been the most impactful to me, or to the country, or to history, or is most photogenic, or I have spent the most time, or with whom I experienced the site, or, or, or.  Then, also, the nomenclature of ‘parks’ may not be entirely accurate for the purposes of my sharing my favorites because I have equal affinity for national monuments, battlefields, historic sites, preserves, and memorials.

Truthfully, I never bothered to rank the various entities of the National Parks Service as favorites because each provides such unique experiences, offers spectacular and varied vistas, and holds special places in my mind and my heart.  Some I have seen only once, but I desperately want to return.  Others I have visited more than once, and the second time I have felt unbelievably fortunate to experience the places twice.  Still others I know I will adore, but I have yet to see them for myself.  Asking me for a favorite national park may be like asking parents who is their favorite child – I love them all for different reasons.

If Such A List Existed

I begin to rethink the question now that I am visiting Dry Tortugas National Park.  Such history, such remoteness, such tranquility – it all reminds me of what I love most about the national park system.  “Maybe,” I think, “maybe this is my new favorite site.”  And no sooner do the words cross my mind than I realize I have never really declared my favorite, so how could this amazing location unseat that which has not yet been established?  The time has come to select a favorite.  And within moments, some of my most beloved sites in America scroll through my mind: Grand Canyon, Glacier, Glacier Bay, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Carlsbad Caverns, Golden Spike, Gettysburg, Everglades, Channel Islands, the National Mall, North Cascades, Lewis and Clark Trail – oh, I cannot even think of them all as I stand in this idyllic setting.

So rather than think about one, I think about two and decide which one ranks higher; for example, Glacier Bay versus Channel Islands.  I have visited Glacier Bay twice and Channel Islands once, so Glacier Bay earns a theoretical hash mark.  Both involve riding a boat, so each gets a nod.  Glacier Bay takes more effort to reach, but I enjoyed the Channel Islands with Son #2, and I observed far more wildlife at the Channel Islands, so they are still pretty close.  On and on I go until my rankings take shape: 1) Carlsbad Caverns (see “Hidden Beauty” from March 2012), and then 2) Glacier National Park (see “Went-To-The-Sun Road” from February 2012), followed by my new favorite, Dry Tortugas National Park, although it nearly ties with 4) Grand Canyon National Park.  Next is Yellowstone National Park followed by Yosemite National Park – oh, wait, no, switch those – Yosemite and then Yellowstone.  And here I pause and remind myself this is why I gave up making lists: I cannot even count higher than four without being utterly confused.

Waiting

Their Departure

Carlsbad Caverns rank as my most favorite caves, partly because they are the first caves I ever explored, but mostly because they are grand and open and completely unclaustrophobically enjoyable (see “Hidden Beauty” from March 2012).  When I had the body of teenager, I squeezed through some much tighter openings to see caverns in northern Arizona, but on my road trip to the American Southwest, I chose to skip reliving that childhood experience.  Instead, I drove Son #1 and Son #2 near the Texas border to descend into my favorite caves.  And in advance of our day below the earth, I convinced the boys to drive out the night before to see the bats take flight into the darkening night.

We sat in an open amphitheater on historic and uncomfortable stone benches curving toward the entrance of the cavern.  We listened to a park ranger who seemed more of an angry, rule-follower than any park ranger I have ever met.  (Pun intended, I have to believe he was bat-shit crazy the way he treated us simple tourists, to use my brother’s terminology.)  We turned off every electronic device we carried – our cell phones, our cameras, everything – so as to not distract the audio-stupendous bats from finding their way to the river where the mosquitos foolishly gathered to be dinner for a million hungry flying mammals.  And we waited, watching for the first early birds to lead the rest of their relatives out for their midnight adventure.  And we waited, sitting nearly silent so as to not to disturb the swirling, spiraling pattern that would soon rise above us.  And we waited, wondering if they were ever going to make an appearance.

Our Departure

First one or two, so swift and darting, that I do not even see them swoop and swirl.  And with a reprimand from the ranger, the onslaught of little black creatures forms an exodus from the dark depths of the cavern over our heads.  And in the dark, moonless sky, in the middle of the New Mexican desert, we squint our eyes to see the never-ending stream of creatures faintly silhouetting themselves against the last light of dusk.  Their collective flapping and high-pitched squeaking emit far less sound than a million of any other creature might generate.  And they continue to pour forth from their deep recesses disappearing into the darkness.

Families with small children, who manage to keep them still as long as imaginably possible (despite the admonitions from the rotten ranger) are the first to follow the bats and depart into the night.  And much like the bats, once one departs, a continuous wave of tourists take flight in their minivans and rented campers.  But we wait, to see how long the bats continue, and I plan to stick it out until they have headed southward.  And we wait as more people depart, vacating their cold perches on the hard stones for the luxury of their car seats, and later their warm beds.  So we wait, watching the dark swirls seemingly dissipate, but in truth, against the black sky, the flying rodents are nearly invisible and may still be overhead, but we cannot tell.  We wait no more, and we succumb to the darkness of a late summer evening, leaving the bats to their night of frolicking and feeding.

Hidden Beauty

Claustrophobia

Admittedly, I am claustrophobic.  Riding in the backseat of a Volkswagon bug, using an airplane bathroom, or crawling under a bed are just too close to my face for comfort.  Even getting tangled in my sheets at night unnerves me.  Caves?  I have entered a few, crawling into one west of Flagstaff during my summer as a camp counselor, but the perceived lack of oxygen and actual lack of open space in my personal bubble make exploring significantly challenging.  Carlsbad Caverns, however, allows me the opportunity to climb deep below the earth’s surface without even the tiniest fraction of angst.

The New Mexican landmark, in the portions open to the public, reaches depths of more than 800 feet (244 meters) in which I comfortably stroll through the expansive, humid chambers.  The gently folding path at the main entrance eliminates unnecessary hiking and trekking from my cave exploration, although those opportunities exist for more adventurous spelunkers, but like most tourists I enjoy the ease and openness of the massive underground system.  On my most recent expedition to the national park I get to witness history unseen by most visitors and despite my lack of fear from enclosure, I benefit from the best vantage point possible for a claustrophobe like me: I never descend into the caves.

Filing Cabinets of Wonder

My college degree hinges on one final class: History 309: Introduction to Historical Writing.  Knowing this class will require an inordinate amount of research, I begin preparing five semesters earlier, including planning two trips to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.  That’s not a challenge, but rather a bonus for a travel junkie like me because in-depth research merely provides an additional excuse to return to New Mexico.  Just like Mammoth Cave and Wind Cave, visitors at Carlsbad Caverns National Park can enjoy nature’s aboveground creations since the forces that created the wonders underground contributed to the visible landscape too.  But for me, I discover a different kind of beauty at ground level.

For two days, I gently turn page after page of historical records, 80-year-old monthly reports, and photographs printed on paper handled decades ago by the park rangers who toured the caves years before the installation of elevators.  Handwritten notes and carbon-imprinted triplicates interspersed with pictures taken with or by Carlsbad Caverns National Park’s first superintendent, Thomas Boles, unfold into a treasure trove of history.  Tucked inside a plain row of filing cabinets, I uncover these historic treasures the same way the Guadalupe Mountains hide the subterranean geologic gems of the Southwest’s caverns.  The fastidious compilation of words and images gathered and saved by the guardians of the national park service over the past century mirrors the laborious drip, drip, drip of water depositing and sculpting the stalagmites over hundreds of thousands of years.  I see beauty in both.