Cumbres & Toltec

The Last Crusade

As ridiculous fans of the Indiana Jones franchise, we purposely detoured out of northern New Mexico to Antonito, Colorado to catch the terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.  Knowing we held tickets for the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad the next day, we opted against riding the rails between Colorado and New Mexico, but we couldn’t miss the sight of this old-fashioned locomotive carrying its passengers through the southern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.  Roughly twenty years after the start of the American Civil War, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad laid tracks in support of the mining industry, but in our day, we arrived here strictly as tourists catching a glimpse of a scene we recall from a different period in history.

The primary focus of seeing the train evoked cinematic memories from the third (and as my sons’ believe, the final) adventure of the archeologist named for the family dog.  The Cumbres-Toltec pulled a less-typical cargo of a circus train through the Southwestern United States where a young Indiana Jones sought to elude treasure hunters by hopping aboard the mountain train as it passes through a grassy flatland.  For us, seeing the locomotive would be another movie moment on our vacation adventures (see “Field of Dreams,” February 2013).

A Race Downhill

We inevitably find unique places to stop for a photo moment and somewhere between Santa Fe and Antonito, a winery, a bridge over the Rio Grande, and a nearly dwindled patch of mountain snow (see “The Progression of a Snowball Fight,” January 2012) slow our journey to the railroad’s end.  But we spy the tracks and follow them as best as the narrow roads through the mountains allow.  When we stop at an inspiring outlook, we hear the whistle blow in the distance, echoing off the peaking at our backs.  We race onward in search of the historic locomotive and its length of cars being pulled through the wilderness.  And with winding swiftness, we gain on its caboose and parallel its path for nearly a mile.  When it bends westward, we push forward attempting to get ahead of its steaming engine so we can watch its approach and feels its thunder as it meets our vantage point.

 

We zip ahead and see a marked crossing where we strategically position ourselves and prepare for its approach.  First we hear the vibration of the rails stinging from the weight and motion pulsing towards them.  Next, we hear the engine pounding, chugging, working less difficultly than it must have through the mountains, but nonetheless exerting its force to move towards us.  Then we see the mighty machine round a bend to the north and the puffs of smoke are left hanging in its wake.  Then as it approaches the crossing and the road we previously skirted, it blasts its whistle, a sound unmatched by modern technology, and a sweet reminder of the history behind this mode of transportation.  But it’s no longer a mode of transportation, nor is it even a reminder of a historic era faded into the past.  For us, it is a piece of our favorite adventurer claiming the Cross of Coronado and riding off into the sunset.  And once the engine and its full length pass us, we hop back in our car and do the same.

Drink The Wine

With this 100^th blog post, a brief word of thanks to anyone who has traveled with me virtually through my adventures.

Siegerrebe Farewell

To the boredom and apathy of my sons, when we took our epic vacation throughout New Mexico, I made a few stops along the way at some tasty wineries.  From the days of the Spanish monks, wine making in the Land of Enchantment developed into my favorite flowing nectars from Deming to Velarde to Embudo to Tularosa.  And along the way on our family expedition, I sampled many varieties, purchased a few bottles, and delighted in all the mildly delightful intoxication of the experience.  For me, more than one sense comes alive when I open myself to the experience of traveling.  The sights are worth seeing, but the tastes, the fragrances, and the sounds combine to make my adventures extraordinary.

Half a decade later, while skirting another grape-heavy region, I visited several Washington State wineries, and even dabbled in the wines of Western Montana.  On the southern end of the Flathead Lake in Montana a family-owned winery served a wonderful history of its vineyards, while the Glacier Peak Winery packed up Siegerrebe as a parting pleasure from the Skagit River Valley in Washington.  When I finally poured the last glass from the last bottle of the wonderful white wine, I set the tall, thin, green-glass decanter on the corner of my writing table, and there it continues to sit today reminding me of the voyage and the vintage, both of which I cherish.

A Parable

I recall a story, but it’s really more of a parable, about a man and his wife and how they traveled and bought wines from all over the world.  When they would return home, they would shelf these precious souvenirs and save every delectable drop for the most special occasions.  In time, the wife became ill and as her condition deteriorated, so did the collection of wines.  When she finally passed away, the husband found himself alone with a myriad of vintages most of which had lost their flavor, and their joyful sentiments.  His lesson to others: drink the wine.  From then forward, he never gave a bottle of wine as a gift without glasses so that it would be consumed upon receipt.

What did I learn from this lesson?  Drink the wine!  Savor its flavor and watch its color glisten in the glass.  Do not hide it away in a cellar, bring it forth, uncork its fragrance and share it with friends.  When the wine bottle has been emptied and the lulling buzz of its potency has long since faded, memories remain.  I remember the unpaved pathways to the vineyards of Black Mesa, and to the Mission Mountain wineries.  I can still savor the chocolate infused flavors and the deep, rich reds and the soft delicate whites.  I sipped and satisfied my palette with the southwestern delicacies and the northwestern liquid gems.  Not a drop remains to keep as a souvenir.  Besides, that’s why I own wine glasses.

Combing Through My Memories

My First Adventure

Just after my third birthday, my father switched jobs and our family moved to Arizona from Colorado.  Growing up in the desert climate of the Grand Canyon state (see “One Hundred Years” from March 2012) clearly shaped my passion for warmth and my distaste for snow.  Our family traveled separately to arrive at our new home with my father and me driving from Denver to Phoenix by way of Albuquerque, while my mother flew with a four-year-old and six-week-old.  While not my first road trip, I recall select pieces of this drive, but nothing of the scenery.  I wonder if maybe I was too little to see out the window.

South from the Mile High City, across the state line into New Mexico, through Santa Fe, and down to Albuquerque we drove, making a right turn towards the mountainous areas of Flagstaff during the month of December, and then a left turn towards Arizona’s capital.  I passed through three of my now favorite states, and all without a single recollection of the mountains, the sunsets, the rocks, the rivers, or the route that brought me to my childhood home.  I sometimes think it would be worth retracing my steps and driving this route again, but without the initial recollection of the voyage, it might be just another gloriously scenic drive, but not a memory inducer.

The Moments We Remember

I recall only a few memories of my time living in Colorado – watching out the picture window waiting for my Dad to come home from work,  his painting the deck a color the paint can referred to as “peanut butter,” and singing “Sugar, Sugar,” a number one hit from 1969 by the Archies.  It always strikes me as odd, what things we remember.  A paint color (which I also remember getting on my beach ball) and a cartoon pop song (which I remember hearing while riding in a car with someone who was not my family, but I don’t know who) are two distinct memories I have as a two-year-old.  When I went back to visit the house in Denver as an adult, the current resident asked if my parents had picked out the awful rust-colored carpet.  If I had to guess, I thought I remembered the carpet being green.

But on the drive from my toddler home to my childhood home, I recall only two specific moments from the trip.  The first, when I had an upset stomach and got sick all over one of the two beds in the hotel room (sorry, Dad), so he nervously let me sleep next to him, no doubt paranoid that this little person would get sick again.  And then the following morning, Dad tried to get me ready to go by combing my hair with his narrow comb rather than a gentle little girl’s hair brush.  Ouch!  I know that I cried the entire time.  (Again, sorry Dad.)  But I wonder how well I behaved in the car, what I maybe said to my Dad while we rode, what scenery we witnessed, and how I passed my time for two solid days.  I wish I remembered those moments instead.

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.

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.