Thanks Mama and Papa Houston!

Largely thanks to you, Jessica has now officially entered her 30th year of being awesome!

Happy 29th birthday Jess!


Celebrating Jessica's and Emily's successful completion of P.A. school. She's mad smart, yo.

Here are a few shots from our last night out on the town in W-S:


Just leaving dinner, and already getting feisty.


Yes, Jason, they're much prettier than we are.


With no warning, she pounces.


"Y'all don't leave!"


Awww, big inebriated family hug.

We love and miss you! See you soon in Oregon, right??? We'll make sure you have an even better time than your depth-challenged likeness did.


This is you guys cheering us on as we finally hit the road in Winston


Jess, boozing it up at a blues jam in New Orleans


Don't 2-D puke on the couch!


Up early the next day, out on Bourbon St., preserving the jazz.


Hiking in Palm Springs, CA


Surveying the Badlands in Borrego Springs, CA


"It's not a bad corral. Nothing outstanding."

OMG YOU GUYS, WHITE SANDS IS AWESOME (by Murphy the Dog)

Seriously. It is. And not only because it was such a welcome change from the majority of this trip, during which I have been moping about in the back seat, rigged up in some humiliating canine restraint contraption while Nick and Lauren have been enjoying their mobile command center up front.


Do they think this is a space ship?


I know I look stupid.


Don't laugh or I swear I'll eat your face.


I mean, just absurd.

They keep telling people, "Oh, it's for her protection", but then I hear them snickering to each other about me becoming a potentially lethal 60-pound cannon ball in the event of a crash. Clearly the thing was purchased with their safety in mind. And for the record, I'm like 58 pounds. But I digress. Nick and Lauren made up for all of that in a big way with this stop in White Sands National Monument, NM.

That morning started off terribly. We had camped in some cheesy RV park in Carlsbad, NM that was advertised as "family friendly" (note: this translates into "there will be lots of screaming kids and a petting zoo consisting of one sad miniature donkey"). Genius 1 and Genius 2 had forgotten to check the weather forecast and at some point during the night I was rudely jostled awake as Lauren attempted to shove me into her sleeping bag for warmth. It had dropped into the 20s overnight. When the alarm went off we awoke, shivering, before sunrise to find my water bowl frozen. While Nick and Lauren packed up the gear in the pre-dawn darkness, I tried desperately to create a suitable nest for myself out of blankets and Nick's favorite sweatshirt in the back seat. My life is just one trial after the next. I was asleep again before they started the engine.

Three or so hours later I woke up from this great dream where I was chasing a cat who was in turn chasing a squirrel to find myself surrounded by a bizarre landscape. The sky was an intensely bright blue and the ground appeared to be covered with snow, looking not unlike some of the winter days we used to get when we lived in CT. But there was something definitely different about this snow. It looked very fine and dry, kind of like the dust that covers Nick's guitar that he has owned longer than I've been alive and still doesn't know how to play.


These are little picnic huts.

Still in my embarrassing shackles, I cautiously got out of the car (cautious not so much because of the unfamiliar territory, but because I spied this sign on the way in).


In case you can't make that out it says that there may be unexploded munitions lying about, this being just outside of the White Sands Missile Range.

My timidness did not persist. This was all sand, but it was soft and cold and wonderful. I read on one of the placards that it is mostly gypsum, which is really a limestone salt, left over from when this place was an ancient coral reef. Lauren and I took turns pulling each other up the dunes at first.





Some of the signs said that dogs had to be on leashes, but we made an executive decision. Our spot was isolated enough that a little free time for me wouldn't cause any harm.


Who's gonna know?


I'm freeeeeeeee!


Those are the three of our footprints. This picture was my idea. I have a very deep, creative side.

Nick and Lauren had rented a sled from the gift shop too. Check out this video montage I put together (make sure sound is on):



We capped off the fun with a lovely family portrait.


Stupid harness.

I don't know what's next for me on this trip, but my faith in these two has been somewhat restored. I drank about a liter of water to wash down all the sand I ate and then collapsed in my nest, exhausted, quickly drifting off into a deep sleep. White Sands... (snore).... is.... (twitch, twitch) ... awesome.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad from the outside

We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in Whites City, NM and discovered that we had unwittingly traded away the opportunity to walk from the mouth of the caverns all the way to the main chamber (745 vertical feet and approximately 1.5 miles) for our leisurely drive along the Rio Grande. We were totally okay with that, but Gary (see Austin post) had told us that there is lots to be seen along this winding tunnel stroll, so for anyone planning to visit you should be sure to arrive before 2 pm. Well, that comes with the disclaimer that you should take the natural entrance only if you do not suffer from chiroptophobia (fear of bats).

Our somewhat lame arrival (we took the elevator) did not detract from the awesomeness of the caverns. I mean that literally. It took us almost 2 hours to complete a self-guided loop of the parts that are open to the public and there are still chambers and passages being discovered. The imaginatively titled Big Room is the size of 6 football fields and over 250 feet high in places. The aptly named Hall of Giants contains the cavern's largest formations, including the awe-inspiring Rock of Ages. Pits up to 140 feet deep, some filled with jagged stalagmites, can be found to the sides of the walking path. Exploring the caverns without the help of installed lighting (which now includes over 1000 bulbs requiring over 6 miles of concealed wiring) must have been a little nerve-wracking, especially for first guy to use this makeshift ladder during National Geographic's visit in 1924:


Oh hell no.

Here is an entirely cribbed description of the caverns' origins:

The story of the creation of Carlsbad Cavern begins 250 million years ago with the creation of a 400 mile long reef in an inland sea that covered this region. This horseshoe shaped reef formed from the remains of sponges, algae and seashells and from calcite that precipitated directly from the water. Cracks developed in the reef as it grew seaward. Eventually the sea evaporated and the reef was buried under deposits of salts and gypsum.

Then, a few million years ago, uplift and erosion of the area began to uncover the buried rock reef. Rainwater, made slightly acidic from the air and soil, seeped down into the cracks in the reef, slowly dissolving the limestone and beginning the process that would form large underground chambers. At the same time, hydrogen sulfide gas was migrating upward from vast oil and gas deposits beneath the ancient reef. This gas dissolved in the percolating ground water to form sulfuric acid. The added power of this corrosive substance explains the size of the passageways. The exposed reef became part of the Guadalupe Mountains and the underground chambers became the wonder of Carlsbad Cavern.

Predictably, our trusty little Canon PowerShot could not adequately catalogue the sheer size and intricacy of the limestone formations within the caverns. It turns out that Carlsbad Caverns is something best appreciated in person. Here are a few shots that came out okay, but seriously it is so much cooler than this:


"Curtain" speleothems


"Column" speleothems


"Soda straw" stalactites and a mix of stalagmites


"Popcorn" stalagmites


This is a picture taken straight up. It's a part of the cavern ceiling reminiscent of the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when the spikes descend on Indy and Short Round.

When our eyes finally adjusted to the late afternoon sun following our return to the surface, we headed north to the town of Carlsbad, NM for dinner and camping. Our plans were to get up before dawn and haul over to White Sands National Monument for a few hours before continuing on to Silver City, NM. If you find yourself driving through New Mexico, make a point of stopping to explore Carlsbad Caverns (they even have a temperature controlled kennel behind the gift shop so your dog will be safe from the heat of the parking lot!). Stay tuned for adventures in White Sands...

Big, Big, Big Bend National Park

What the traffic on I-10 in West Texas lacks in frequency it makes up for in hugeness.

To gear up for Thanksgiving we've been listening to the audio book of "The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell. Just so you know, listening to an audio book is a much preferred alternative to reading a novel while driving. The book is a very detailed and surprisingly humorous (except for the starvation, sickness, and gangrene business) account of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the group of Puritans who first established Boston and Salem. It's also a great book for this trip because it adds to the sense of national pride that we already feel.

We have found ourselves uttering some version of, "Our country is amazing" more than a few times during this trip, and the moment Big Bend National Park came into view was one of them. The huge, jagged, red-brown rock formations set against the stark Chihuahuan Desert was a bit foreboding yet strangely inviting. The timing of our visit certainly made the park more hospitable than it would have been a few months ago, when the average temperatures were in the mid-90s and would often spike to over 100 degrees (the sun-baked sand and rocks get much hotter than that). We, on the other hand, were greeted by beautiful, bright blue skies, thinly stretched white clouds, and temps in the mid-70s.


It looks like we're parked in front of a painting! But we're not.

After reading the "How not to die in the desert" information the NPS provides (there are so many interesting ways to perish!) we registered for a back country camping permit with Ranger Rob. He kindly informed us that we ought not to let Murphy out of our sight because there are any number of creatures in the park that would be perfectly happy to trample, gore, poison, and/or devour her. Our favorite of these threats is called the javelina. Named for their javelin-like tusks, these guys weigh about 40 lbs., travel in packs of 20 - 30, and resemble pigs (they're of the same order, artiodactyl, as swine) but are technically Peccaries. Their pungent scent glands have also garnered them such flattering nicknames as "skunk pig" and "musk hog".


"Hey! I heard that!"

Ranger Rob, knowing we were on a somewhat tight schedule, showed us how to get the most out of our visit. We were directed to take a drive to Boquillas Canyon on the south eastern edge of the park by the Rio Grande, get out of the car for a short hike along the river, hop back in the car and drive to Chisos Basin in the center of the park for more stunning views, and then do our best to find and set up our campsite at Terlingua Abajo, in the south western corner, before dark.


Map of Big Bend National Park

Ranger Rob's wisdom was immediately apparent. Our stop in Boquillas Canyon offered beautiful scenery that was drastically different from the park's interior views. Since I lack the words that would do this place justice, I will defer to these pictures, and a short recording of Singing Victor.


Prickly pear (opuntia) cactus in the foreground, Rio Grande and Mexico beyond. This type of prickly pear is also called a "paddle cactus" because it resembles a ball-and-paddle toy.


In front of the mighty Rio Grande and Mexico.


Past this point the canyon gets much more difficult to navigate.




Lauren walking in Boquillas Canyon


The sound quality from my camera is not great but the acoustics in the canyon were.

Next stop Chisos Basin:


On the road to Chisos


Look at those glorious mountains!


The visitor's center at Chisos Basin.


In case you failed to appreciate the previous picture.


It would have been nice to stay until the sun set on those mountains, but it was time to find camp.

Off to Terlingua Abajo:

After the paved road ends, we have about 13 miles of dirt track (which was often narrow and rocky) before we reach our destination.


Can we make it by sundown?


Yes!


Secluded? Perhaps too much so.


HOLY SPINES.


It comes in a lovely and equally painful purple as well.


Tonight, we dine on grilled cheese and soup.

Our feast aroused the curiosity of a very bold kangaroo rat, who nosed around at the edge of our campsite just out of Murphy's reach. She was not pleased.





Sunrise. We had a brief rain shower overnight.


Ocotillo on an overcast morning.



We packed up our gear and left the campsite for Carlsbad, NM, opting for an indirect but breathtaking drive along the Rio Grande. We had been told that it was one of the top 10 rated scenic routes in the country and would recommend it to anyone who has the extra time. Carlsbad here we come (in third gear, at an average speed of 35 mph)!