The education of our earliest years is introduced to us in the most basic of understanding, so much that we are actually lied to in the beginning. As children we are told babies are delivered by storks, and if you make that face too long it will stay like that. In kindergarten we are taught the colors blue, green, yellow and red. In counting there are only whole numbers, and if the teacher asks you the next number after 4 the only acceptable answer is 5, even though there are infinite numbers between.
Such is the eternal life of a scientist. As a student you are often told that you were lied to in your previous classes, in some cases by the same teacher that committed the white lie. In the educational path of a geologist, you will hear “I know we told you in intro that quartzite is metamorphic, but we lied to you. It isn’t always metamorphic”. The sciences are a never-ending staircase of sorts, a final landing never in sight. Each set of stairs marks an achievement, only to see the next set of stairs that you must climb.
After kindergarten, colors become more complicated. By high school you have discovered that blue is not necessarily a color in itself, but a whole family of colors. There is aqua, teal, cyan, sky blue, and turquoise. In college colors bloom into something even more complicated, and they differe depending on your major. As an art or design student you learn more colors by their name, such as cerulean, glaucous, Azure. If you are a scientist, the colors start taking on numbers such as a B-V of -0.04 for a star. In the case of my favorite color of crayon, what Crayola labels as “Cerulean”, it takes on titles such as RGB 29,172,214 or an HSV of 209*, 94%, 49%.
I think this is why so much of the public has trouble understanding a scientist’s reply when asked a straight-forward question. The answer is, and always will be, one that is constantly fluctuating with time and research. Is it wrong to call a cerulean sweater as a blue sweater? No, but there is certainly more to that, and in the future there may be an even stricter categorization for these colors. As math dictates, there are infinite possibilities for any answer. Not only are there infinite numbers, but there are infinite numbers between each of the counting numbers we use so often.
The scientific staircase is one that is never ending. In becoming a scientist we learn to accept that we will never be 100% accurate, because in the future more research could discover something we were unable to view previously. The purpose of research is not to find the end point, but rather find a grand marker in the never-ending progress of research. The goal is to find information needed to ask more questions, and find infinitely more possibilities between the numbers.
The Basic Building Materials
Each of our worlds exist in the same plane, but yet are built of very different building materials. Everyday we build upon the foundation of our lives, adding rooms, windows and doors to our own personal world. In the literal sense, each of our lives are built of the same materials, but what makes them different is our interpretation of what these materials are. Perhaps one of the most intriguing things about progressing through maturity is how everything around us can change. Not because of an actual displacement, morph or translation, but because our perception, and knowledge, of these things alter in time.
I have worked at one of the big box home improvement stores for over 5 years, the last 2 of which have been spent in the flooring department. While we offer many beautiful floor coverings, I have always had an affinity towards tile. Namely the natural stones like “slate”, “marble”, “granite” and “travertine”. I have made many things out of these tiles calling them by their commercial names and appreciating them for all they had to offer. The “slate” tile we sold was often marked with a black, plant-like detail that I described as a fossil. The smaller “slate” tiles were often covered in small inclusions of other rocks, deep red in color. The “marble” tile had peculiar patterns inside of the stone that both enhanced the beauty, and made cutting intricate patterns a bit of a challenge. I made name plates out of the product, photo frames, pencil holders and more. (I now offer these items for sale, visit my stone creations page in the future to see what I offer)
Today these things take on very different forms. Those black, branched silhouettes that played out on the slate tile are no longer fossils to me: They are now what I call “MnO2”, or Pyrolusite. The smaller slate tiles aren’t slate at all- it’s actually a schist, and those small inclusions of rock are almandine garnets. The marble tile is now a cut and polished limestone slab, chalk-full of fossils from an ancient shallow-marine environment. Everything in my world has changed, even though the fabric of it has remained the same.
As we all know, the sciences are constantly changing. The world was once known to be flat and now it is known to be spherical. The world around us never changed: Our interpretation of what the world is changed. The basic building materials of our very world are left unchanged and through science we seek something so fundamental, yet so life-altering to ourselves: We seek the truth. It is often difficult to accept the truth when we have spent so long teaching ourselves to interpret our world in a specific fashion, but this is what makes science real. It is the basis of my intrigue with geology. Everyday there is at least one thing that changes in interpretation, and each time my world becomes a different color of the world the day before.
Despite the fact that my world has changed, and I now organize schist tile on my shelves, and I marvel at the abundance of fossils in the limestone slabs in Aisle 43, the same world I live in is very different to others. When I sell these items, they are still referred to as slate and marble. At first I thought I was lying to my customers. Now I know I am not, because in their world that tile is very much a marble.
If you are seeking the truth in this world, please come ask it of me. I will be glad to sell you a limestone tile floor, or a schist backsplash for your kitchen. If you would like to remain in your world then I respect your right to do so, and I will sell you a marble floor. We all know that if we give science a few more years that limestone may be further investigated into something else. I prefer to peel away the layers and find the basis of all that is. Some prefer to leave the onion as a whole, unquestioned and appreciated for what it appears to be on the outside. Neither of us is right or wrong: We are simply looking at the same thing in a different light.
The basic building materials in each of our lives is exactly the same. We are each entitled to interpret our world in the best way we see fit. We use the tools given to us in life to understand our world, building new rooms as we see fit to store that information. Personally, I view Geology as more of a deconstruction. It is not in my profession to build new walls. It is my job to tear down the curtains of ideas, and pictures of theories, ingest all the information, and find the walls that have been there all along.
Capulin Volcano, New Mexico to Home:Perhaps I Should Have Stayed On Vaca
It is easy to overlook the big picture when wrapped up in the day to day of our lives. We get lost in life’s mishaps and feel like we are trapped in quicksand. None of our lives are ideal, and the daily grind can be exhausting.
I can honestly say my daily grind is full of adventure. It doesn’t seem to matter what the agenda is for the day, something always happens to keep my life interesting. I love my life not because everything goes right, but because everything goes entirely wrong. It’s a comical life, the type you see on those sitcoms where big mishaps take place but everything always ends up alright in the end. This sort of thing isn’t limited to Hollywood: I live it.
Today is a perfect example of my disastrous, wonderfully compelling thing called life.
I slept in a little bit and took my time getting ready, enjoying the free breakfast the hotel offered. I have to admit I’m a sucker for those Belgian waffles that hotels offer. In fact, when I reserve a hotel I check the description to see if the hotel offers the Belgian waffles before I decide if I am going to book that hotel or not. Ridiculous? Maybe for anyone else, but not for me.
I started my drive to Capulin Volcano National park, which was only a short 30 minute drive, and a tiny 1 mile detour from the path home. I took the turn towards the volcano and drive over a cattle grid, past a yellow caution sign that neither warns of deer, or that cartoon Elk I had observed all over Arizona two days ago. It warns me of free range cattle.
Sure enough as I travel down the highway, covered lightly in snow from the night before, there is a small herd of cattle standing in the middle of the road. Behind them stands a second cattle grid that would signify my freedom of the very cattle that stood in my way. I was traveling very slow because of the snow and ice, so I crept up on the herd of cattle expecting them to move as they saw me approaching them. Most animals get scared when a large, red object that rivals the size of an elephant approaches them. Not these guys.
As I get close they continue to stand there, staring at me. I slowed down even more, inching forward now, and they still don’t move. I was now only feet away so I touched the brakes to stop. The snow, however, had something else in mind. Despite the ceased rotation of my tires my car continued forward, sliding straight into 2-3 of the cattle that stood there looking at me in stupor.
CLUNK
CLUNK
CLUNK.
I bump into them, the cattle stumble and bounce away as they realize my car wasn’t friendly.
I sat in my car for a little bit, stunned. Had I really just hit some cows? Really?
I look over and see that a farm truck was sitting in the field to my right. I get out and check my car- all is ok, just some hair from the cows was plastered to the bumper with the moisture from melted snow. I look around for the cattle to make sure I didn’t hurt them and they all seem ok as they stare at me in disbelief of my violent greeting from a safe distance.
The farmer, who had been parked in his truck in the field, gets out and his two cattle dogs come with him as he asks if I’m ok. I reply that everything seems to be ok and I ask if he thinks the cows are ok. After both of us concluding I wasn’t going fast enough to hurt anything, and him explaining the cattle have the right of way and I need to be careful, we have small chat about the weather and the volcano. He tells me that the view from atop Capulin is definitely worth the drive. After petting his dogs and apologizing for running into his cows I get back in my car, parked in the middle of the road, and drive towards the volcano.
Upon reentering my vehicle and putting it back in drive I immediately begin laughing. Hysterically.
Only I could have this many mishaps on a 10 day vacation.
I get to the visitor center and pay the $5 entrance fee. Why is it that some of the most exciting places to visit charge so little, such as the beaches and Carlsbad, yet the Grand Canyon and Meteorite Crater are so ridiculously overpriced?
After watching the short informative video on Capulin, which informs me that all of the mountains in northeastern New Mexico were originally volcanoes, I go to pickup my postcards to send back home as I had at most of my major stops. I’m the only one in the visitor center and I’m looking at some books. I pick up one on geology and it somehow flips out of my hand and through the air and I catch it before it has the chance to get back to the ground. I laugh, the lady behind the counter laughs, and I put it back on the shelf.
“Yeah, that’s how my day started”. I laugh as I once again run the fresh image of the cattle bouncing away from my car after being hit.
We have a good conversation about volcanoes. I tell her about the jar of ashes I have from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens and she mentions that she has a Christmas ornament that is made from the same ashes. We talk about different things, including the volcano that erupted at the beginning of my journey, a world away. It’s nice talking to a guide that is educated in geology, it isn’t something you find everywhere. I leave the visitor’s center to drive up the swirling road to the top of Capulin Volcano.
Capulin Volcano is a cinder cone that erupted only about 60,000 years ago, which is relatively young in geological terms. It rises over 8,000 feet above sea level, and the crater is 400 feet deep. The road that spirals up to the rim of the volcano is 2 miles long, swirling up thousands of feet often without a guardrail. A little scary considering the road is still covered in light snow on the shaded side of the volcano where the sun has yet to melt it away. I drive carefully, the incident of the cattle massacre fresh in my mind.
I reached the top to find I wasn’t the only crazy tourist willing to risk their life to see a monument to geological history. There were two other cars up top, and the view from there was spectacular. You could see for miles and miles. The vegetation that covers the cinder cone (which is unusual for a volcano of it’s age, many don’t get so densely populated so quickly) is all covered in delicate frost crystals that move in the breeze like small feathers. Looking down into the crater you can see lots of volcanic rock that has accumulated there from it’s previous explosion.
I slowly descend the 400’ along the paved path, covered in snow and ice, to reach the bottom of the crater. I get there and look up, the view is pretty cool having the walls of the crater all around you. A couple is down in the crater as well taking some pictures. I take my picture by using a sign post as a camera stand. The couple offers to take my picture for me, but after reviewing the picture I had taken right before and seeing that it was alright I thank them for the offer, but decline.
I leave Capulin, paying special attention to the road for cattle. Along the side of the road on the way out is an old abandoned house sitting on top of cinderblocks as if someone had moved it there planning on building it a foundation but never got around to it. I wouldn’t mind living there, I think to myself.
The drive back home wasn’t planned to be all too eventful. I crossed the border into Texas, a short drive through the panhandle part of the state. The sky was really pretty here, as the sun decided to come out and fluffy, white clouds dotted the sky. Then I crossed the state line into Oklahoma. I was driving along the highway when suddenly I see the all-too familiar flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror. Great.
I pull over on the side of the road and the Sheriff’s SUV patrol car pulls in behind me. He walks up to my passenger side window which is smart for two reasons: One, he isn’t standing in traffic. Two, my driver’s side window doesn’t roll down. He explains to me that I had just passed through a lower speed limit and that I was going 60 in a 45. He tells me that since I’m not from the area he will just give me a warning, but asks if I can go sit in his car while he runs my plates and license to get the all clear. I oblige and his partner gets into the backseat to allow me to sit up front.
While sitting in the patrol car waiting for them to run the plates back at the station he starts up small chat, asking where I was heading and about my trip. After a few minutes I hear a rustling in the back and turn to see a cage that I assumed to contain a drug dog since I couldn’t see behind the back seats. He says that she was a pretty good dog, very quite, which brings up conversation about the puppy I had transported to California. I tell him about the drug dog at border patrol that got excited about the smell of the puppy.
Don’t ever mention that you had to go through border patrol to an officer with a drug dog.
Never.
My plates and license, by a small miracle, come back all clear. He give me back my papers and tells me I’m good to go except for one thing. He says that the fact I had to go through border patrol perked his interest, and with his job and having a drug dog he had to ask a few questions.
“Do you have any illegal narcotics in your vehicle?”
I reply no.
“Do you have an methamphetamines, cocaine, marijuana or any drug paraphernalia in the vehicle?”
I again reply no, and tell him I don’t even have any alcohol in the vehicle.
“Will you consent to a search around your vehicle with my drug dog?”
I, of course, say yes and he asks me to remain in the car while he gets out his dog and lets her run around my car. He takes her out on a leash and walks around the drivers side, around the front, and when he reaches the passenger side his dog sticks her head in my car through the open window. She takes one sniff of the puppy carrier that is sitting in my backseat and jumps right into my car.
…I turn to his partner, who is still sitting in the SUV behind me, and explain that I forgot to mention my passenger car door doesn’t open from the outside.
I watch the officer struggle with the car door, trying to get his drug dog back out of my car. He eventually figures out he needs to open it from the inside and reaches inside to pull the handle. He pulls his dog out of the car and puts her back in her kennel in the back of his patrol unit.
“Sorry about my dog jumping in…she saw that puppy carrier. Have a safe trip home”
Today is just full of laughter.
I continue my drive north towards Kansas, fresh muddy paw prints covering my laptop case and door sill. On the way out to California I had decided to take Oklahoma thinking that a toll road would be better taken care of than the interstates through southern Kansas. Since that theory turned out to be wrong, and had resulted in my disdain for Oklahoman roads, I decided to return via Kansas.
Kansas is the spitting image of our preconceived notionst: A lot of flat farmland with just a few trees here and there. A funny scene was playing out in Kansas as I made my drive northeast through the state. The trees that sporadically stuck out in the terrain were all covered in a thick snow, but the ground was completely clear. I don’t know what causes this phenomenon, but it was rather interesting to see.
When I finally reached Emporia, KS I decided I was in the mood for another of the spicy chicken sandwiches. Since there are no Carl’s Jrs in this part of the country I decided to stop at it’s sister restaurant, Hardee’s, to get my spicy chicken sandwich. I even drove an extra hour and a half to stop specifically at a Hardee’s in hope to get jalapenos, knowing that Wendy’s do not carry them. When I get there they don’t have jalapenos, and they even give me the wrong chicken sandwich altogether.
Not spicy, but a grilled chicken sandwich. I was too hungry to care.
I stopped to get gas and fuel up with one last sugar free Redbull for the last stretch of my trip before I got back on the highway. The cashier gave me a discount on the Red Bull (Apparently it was on sale?) and I returned to my car to calculate my gas mileage as I did every fuel stop and zero my trip odometer. When I go to zero my trip odometer the numbers stick. GREAT. I just broke my odometer.
Like I really needed anything else to go wrong with my car.
On a brighter note, the flat plains of Kansas allowed me to get a full 26 mpg.
The drive home was like the blink of an eye after leaving Emporia. When you have driven over 4000 miles the last couple hundred seem like nothing. I reached home right around 1am, brought in my bags all in one trip and passed out.
As much as I love my journeys, it was good to be home.
Spontaneity-Meteor Crater & Winslow, AZ, The Places Between
Spontaneity.
The quality road trips possess, and air travel lacks. Traveling alone is doubly spontaneous. One can literally stop anywhere they want, when they want. There is no complaining about schedules when I stop to see something interesting, no stopping because someone needs to eat or use the bathroom when I am content, and no feeling guilty about needing to stop to use the facilities when the other passengers do not. When traveling on the road by myself, I’m on my time.
Today’s drive was planned no further than arriving at Raton, NM by nightfall where I would stay in a nice Quality Inn (I get reward points when I stay at this particular chain) and get to swim a little bit before bed in their heated indoor pool. There were a lot of interesting stops that lie along the path through northeastern Arizona that I had not even thought about, so while the drive was longer than planned I was able to stop at many points of interest.
I drove through the snowy alpine, mountainous wilderness that was what I knew of Scottsdale, AZ thus far, and turned East on the interstate. Along the highway I see a big billboard inviting me to see Meteor Crater. Things of space have always interested me, I have even taken astronomy classes in college as a few of my electives. The necklace I wear everyday is a small piece of the Campo de Cielo meteorites that fell in South America. Campo de Cielo quite literally translates into “Field of the Sky”, an area in Argentina where 26 craters were formed over 4000 years ago. The necklace I wear is one of my treasures I am never without.
Meteor Crater National Park is one of the best preserved meteor craters in the world. It is the site where an iron meteorite crashed into the earth, one much like my charm of Campo de Cielo. I would be lying if I labeled the site as anything less than a tourist trap, costing $15 to get into the small museum and view the crater itself. The crater is exactly that: A big crater in the Arizona desert.
While it’s no comparison in size to the Grand Canyon I had just seen before, the site is still inspiring. The viewing platform overhangs the crater itself, which is 570 feet deep and about 4100 feet across. Since it is the first part of January it was a little cold out there, but once again it was a view worth shivering for. After admiring the canyon for a while I returned to the visitor center and purchased a small meteor fragment and a lab-grown bizmuth.
When you purchase your tickets for the Meteor Crater’s museum you also get coupons to one of two restaurants: the Subway inside the visitor center, or “The Whole Enchilada”, a small burrito shack in the gas station at the highway exit. I decide to fuel up both my car and myself before I hit the road again. I order a burrito, and (of course) a churro. The man behind the counter asks for my drivers license when I present him my card to pay for the food and he asks where I’m from in Missouri. Apparently he once lived in Kansas City. He says he never did like Kansas City much at all. The burrito was pretty good.
I get back on the road and I don’t drive long before I decide I need to stop again. Winslow, Arizona. I don’t really know anything about the town other than the song, so for the song alone I stopped and took pictures of that fabled corner in Winslow, Arizona along historic route 66. Funny how we all remember things as historical markers yet the significance is long forgotten.
Along the remaining drive through Arizona there is plenty to see. I drove past the Petrified Forest, which is a big field of what looks like trees that have been chopped down and into logs. All of them were once trees that have “turned to stone”. Of course what really has happened is a type of permineralization called silicification. Visit the National Park Service’s Webpage about the Petrified Forest’s Petrified Wood by clicking here. It’s funny how the timber segments into separate “logs” when it petrifies. I consider stopping to try and pull one out of the field, but think twice about it after a sign warns of the legality of such an action, and the scene I would make trying to move such a heavy object all by myself.
When I return to the Land of Enchantment I have a reminder of why the state of New Mexico is called that. The entire state is quite scenic, covered in beautiful, colorful plateaus and mountains. I stop at the “Welcome to New Mexico” rest stop and trudge through the snow to the visitor center for some free coffee. A couple fenced areas are set up to allow dogs a place to run and get some exercise and a Siberian husky runs around, looking as if it belonged there with all the snow. Yes, even New Mexico is covered in snow.
While I mill around the visitor center drinking my coffee one of the employees there strikes up a conversation. We talk about the differing state’s highway departments and how well New Mexico’s roads are taken care of. I see some brochures on Roswell and realize my current path won’t pass by the area. Oh well. I get a few brochures in hopes that I can visit someday and get back on the road.
The rest of the drive was as scenic as I had remembered New Mexico. On the way out I had driven through the southern part of the state, and now I drove through the northern part, and both were equally scenic. The sun had set right before I approached Albuquerque and I was able to enjoy the city lights as I dipped down into the city that sits in a valley between mountains. When I reached Santa Fe it was dinner time and I really wanted to eat at a Carl’s Jr. Turns out I should have stopped in Albuquerque because none of Santa Fe’s services are right along the highway. You have to drive a ways to get to restaurants and fuel once you exit the highway. When I reached Carl’s Jr I had the most wonderful spicy chicken sandwich ever for only $1.29, and they supply jalapenos for you to put on the sandwich. Mmm.
I was only about 30 miles away from my hotel when it began to snow. The flakes were big and forced me to slow down quite a bit to be able to drive safely. I start cursing the snow. It doesn’t matter how far away I was from home, the snow seemed determine to get in my way.
I arrived safely at my hotel and was able to swim in the pool for a while, and relax in the hot tub, in solitude. It was nice to be able to relax at a hotel for a change. The previous hotels I had stayed at in the journey had simply been a place to sleep before I headed out on a journey, this time I was able to relax. Tomorrow I would be able to relax more on my drive home, stopping at a volcano on the way.
Today I had planned simply to get from point A to point B, but ended up touring the famous Meteor Crater and spending some time on the corner of Winslow Arizona.
Today was a day of spontaneity, but tomorrow had a planned stop that I was very excited to see. I had never been on top of a volcano, but that was exactly what I was going to do. Capulin Volcano National Monument.
The La Brea “Tar Pits”-Where History and Modern Science Meet
A person can put themselves back in the same place, with the same people and even the same time of year but you can not recreate a memory. You can find small things that bring back those memories but the world is an ever-changing place, constantly in motion. Times like these, where you try to immerse yourself back into your past, are when you realize that not only have you changed as you grew older, but so has the rest of the world.
Have you ever had a favorite movie as a young child that you went to re-watch as an adult only to find out it was much better in memory than in reality? If so, you will know what my day at the La Brea Tar Pits was like. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a great place to visit. It was just incredibly different than I remember as a child.
I was probably about 5 years old when my Aunt took me to the La Brea Tar Pits (Official Site) for the first time. The memories I have of the visit are a bit patchy, but here is what I do remember: Walking past the gated tar pits into the museum, looking at dinosaur statues, feeling the sample piece of “dinosaur skin” to see what scientists thought their skin felt like, and at the end she bought me a triceratops figurine and a photo slide.
Today the only thing that was familiar were the gated tar pits themselves. Political correctness and the evolution of scientific theory have changed the landscape of the museum in an entirety. There are no dinosaur statues in the museum, and with that the plaque of “dino skin” I wanted to touch again out of nostalgia was no longer in existence.
Here’s where the lesson in science comes in for all of you folks. No dinosaurs were EVER found at the La Brea Tar Pits. Considering the tar pits were formed well after the extinction of dinosaurs it would be impossible for this to occur unless someone decided to dig up some remains and dump them in the pits thousands of years later.
Most of the skeletons found in the tar pits are from the ice age, but the tar pits continue to ensnare small animals and bugs today. What you have pictured in your mind of the tar pits is probably inaccurate. It actually looks much like a big pond of water with some surface oil, much like a puddle in an urban street. Methane bubbles periodically work their way to the surface, making it look like a dying Jacuzzi tub.
Inside Page Museum at La Brea (yes, La Brea Tar Pits is actually quite redundant, seeing as “Brea” means Tar you are saying “The Tar Tar Pits”), there are numerous skeletons from thousands of years. One of the more numerous skeletons found in the pits is the Dire Wolf. They have a wall covered in their skulls, and these are only a portion of what they have found.
Some of the scientists here work in a literal fish bowl, just like you see in the first Jurassic Park movie. Walking around the back side of the museum you will come to the Paleontology Laboratory, which juts out into the room with a full-glass semi-circular build. The scientists work quietly inside, able to see everyone that mills around watching them tediously separate microfossils from minerals and sediment. It must take a lot of nerve to work under those conditions and I imagine they take turns sitting in the “fish bowl”.
After my brother and I finished the tour of the museum we walked around the ‘pond’ out front that has the mammoth statues tragically stuck in the ‘tar’. Around the walk are some art pieces, one of which looks like spare parts of a construction site. They are simply four concrete boxes. One of those pieces that starts the argument, between my brother and I, over whether art is the product or the intention of the artist’s talents. As we step down to cross the street I notice that tar has bubbled up through the street. Makes roadwork easy I laugh with my brother.
We try to go to Trader Joe’s to get another piece of my childhood memories: Fruit Leather. When I was young my parents used to pick up the fruit leather from Trader Joes for us to snack on. Once again my memoirs were blocked by time and reality: the parking lots were small, crowded, and full. No parking and there were several cars sharking around for spots just as I was. I decided that the fruit leather would have to wait and we headed back to my brother’s home city.
The drive home was through the mist that had remained throughout the day, the sun hiding behind the clouds. The memories I have of living in California mostly involve sunshine, or very windy days where we wore what was called a “windbreaker”, or in Midwestern talk, a light jacket. I don’t clearly remember any rainy or misty days from my childhood, probably because they were spent doing things of no monumental value, like playing legos inside or watching “Oprah” with my Mom.
The mist isn’t unpleasant at all, in fact it’s warm enough that with a jacket the weather is really nice. Comparable to a spring rain in the temperate regions. My Dodge Stealth still looked clean, mismatched wheel and all.
Yet again that I am reminded that memories are not only selective, but they are exactly that: memories.
A person can put themselves back in the same place, with the same people and even the same time of year but you can not recreate a memory. You can find small things that bring back those memories but the world is an ever-changing place, constantly in motion. Times like these, where you try to immerse yourself back into your past, are when you realize that not only have you changed as you grew older, but so has the rest of the world.
And it is in times like these that you realize something important you may have overlooked. For you to continue succeeding in life it is ok to change paths. When you can’t see a dinosaur exhibit, enjoy the comedy of the “fish bowl” scientists and the fascinating numbers of the Dire Wolves that were found in this little piece of Los Angeles.
The Dinosaur exhibit will always be a part of you, and it’s the reason you stepped into the next phase of life. It inspired you to learn something new and continue moving forward.
There is a lot in this world to see, and I have planned to see as much as I can of it, but there is a small factor that I continue to forget: the factor of time. I can take a picture of the world and try to see all of it as it existed in that picture, but I will never truly see all of the world.
To be a well rounded person I truly believe you have to experience the most of the universe as possible, and that’s what I try to attempt in my life. I may only be able to see the “dino skin” exhibit when I’m 6 years old, and the Dire Wolf collection at the age of 25, but every piece that I add to my collection of memories is going to be there forever. In another 20 years, perhaps, I will return in search for the memories of this misty day in Los Angeles and the bubbly waters of La Brea only to discover something new.
Remember: The memories last forever, and the new ones should be cherished just as much as the old.
Carlsbad Caverns
I’m in love. Have I told you that? I could live there and still not be satisfied with my time spent. That’s right, I’m in love with Carlsbad Caverns.
After my last entry I went to eat breakfast at Denny’s since I had waken up too late for the free breakfast the hotel provides. I ate my food so fast I think the waitress, and a couple of the other diners, were astonished. I must have looked starved but I didn’t care- I was in a hurry to get to Carlsbad Caverns.
Carlsbad Caverns is about a 20 mile drive west from the city of Carlsbad. When you reach the sign proclaiming “Carlsbad Caverns” you still have another 6 miles to drive. I stopped to take a few pictures in front of the sign, a couple with my digital and one with my phone. When you are traveling alone it is always interesting to get pictures of yourself on your travels. For safety reasons I usually prefer to wit until I am alone, which doesn’t seem to be a problem in most areas, then find a safe spot to sit my camera and set it on a 10 sec delay to give me time to get into position. Most of the time in these situations I use the hood or roof of my car, and this time was no different. I took a few pictures with the digital. As another car approached the pull-off I finished my last picture and jumped back in the car.
A lady and her son get out to take a picture by the sign. On the way up to the sign she suddenly jumps in front of my car as I start to pull out.
“Wait! Wait!” she cries, waving her arms.
I stop and open the door (my Dodge Stealth’s drivers side window doesn’t work) and she picks my camera up off the hood of my car and hands it to me.
“You don’t want to lose this do you?” She laughs.
I thank her over and over. I ask if she wants me to take a picture of her son and herself but she says no thanks. This makes the second time I was saved by a complete stranger in the past few days. I think a trend is starting to develop.
I pull up to the visitor center in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which sits perched on top of a small mountain, and took notice of a sign as I pulled up. “Absolutely NO pets left in vehicles or allowed in caverns. Must use available kennel”. I hope this isn’t going to be too expensive…
I see a lady leaving the visitor center and I ask her about the kennel. She says it looks like it is a good place, and that it costs $5 for the day. Not bad. This is going to make my day much easier!
After picking out a kennel for Ellie and providing her with a fresh bowl of water I wander into the visitor center to purchase my tickets. I had REALLY wanted to go on a wild caving tour, but when I went to purchase tickets two weeks ahead of time online they were already sold out for this day. I was hoping for a cancellation or two when I arrived but there was no such luck. The only tour available was of course the self-guided main tour that takes you through the natural entrance, descending over 750’ and the winding through 1.25 mi of pathways until you reach the Big Room pathways. The Big Room, which includes the Hall of Giants, is quite literally a BIG ROOM full to the brim with gorgeous speleothems of all sorts. Over 6 football fields could fit inside this cavern area. Now THAT is big. This tour only costs $6, and is full to the brim with exciting things to see of the underworld. I HIGHLY recommend going on this tour. It will certainly be the best $6 you’ve ever spent!
I paid for my ticket and headed down the pathway towards the gate where a park ranger gives you a drill down of what you can and cannot do. No food or drink allowed in the gave, this includes gum. Kids must stay within arm’s length of their guardian. Absolutely NO TOUCHING of the formations. (For those of you unfamiliar with a cave’s natural state, touching the formations can actually kill them. The oils from your hands stop the water/mineral mixture from adhering to the rocks surface and it stops growing.) Then, a handful of people at a time, the release you into the pathway that descends past the bat watching auditorium and into the great underground.
As I walk past the bleachers that are there for the bat fly-out I remind myself I must return in the spring to see this. Every night from about March thru October thousands of bat swirl out of the cave into the darkening sky to feed on mosquitoes and other annoying bugs. Every night they take the exact same path, and have been doing so for years and years.
The descent into the cave is a pretty nice walk. The pathways are very rough, like a chunkier sandpaper, so that you don’t slip walking down the steep grade. Each time you turn the path you can feel the air of the cave hit your face. It’s a familiar feeling for me and I absolutely love the scent that accompanies it. The air is slightly cool, but only because it is damp. The smell is a damp, earthy tone that reminds me of several things from my childhood that I enjoyed. For example, The “Fire in the Hole” underground rollercoaster that sprays water on you at Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO) has a similar scent. Anytime I am in a cave I breathe it in deeply and let it calm my senses.
The tour of the cave itself is hard to explain except in pictures, and I took plenty (over 230 of them). Every time I turned a corner I would think that certainly it would end soon. Nothing so wonderful could last that long. But turn after turn I was further amazed at the increasing prevalence of speleothems and the opening of the rooms into larger and larger ones. It was almost too much to take in.
In fact, I had to sit down on a bench after I passed the Hall of Giants. I was so happy, and the caves were so much to take in, I almost started crying. I fought with myself, sitting there in that beautiful underworld. I am NOT an emotional little girl, I told myself. I don’t cry when I am overly happy, it just doesn’t happen. I fidgeted with my camera, pretending to mess with the settings and furrowing my brow in frustration of my sudden emotional turn. An Indian man approached me and asked me if I needed someone to take my pictures. I smiled and used it as an excuse to shove away these emotions and handed him my camera. He took a picture, of which I am not sure I will post because I look a little out of it, and then I continued along my way.
I also came across a really nice park ranger along my travels in the caverns. She works at Carlsbad Caverns for 6 months, then travels up to a Colorado State Park and works there for another 6 months. We talked about caves for a while, and she told me about some friends she has that work at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and the research they get to help out with. I told her about “The Longest Cave” and encouraged her to read it, and showed her some pictures I had on my phone of bats in Missouri caves. She gave me some information on how I could get a job working for one of the National Park caves. I stored it in my phone. This was certainly something to SERIOUSLY consider.
When I finally reached the end of the tour, where a large series of elevators take you up through the rock (with windows on all sides so you can watch the rock fly past you), I was again feeling that sweeping emotion. I walked into the bookstore, which uses all it’s profits for cave conservation, and concentrated on getting some souvenirs and post cards. While sitting in front of the post cards staring at them but not seeing them a man I had met earlier in the caves approached me and asked me if I had enjoyed the tour. I chatted with him a while, he said he could tell I was a caver by my gear. (I had brought in my adventure bag, which is stained from cave mud and had a small led flashlight attached to the zipper). He told me about some caves from where he lives back in Texas and told me it’d definitely be something worth seeing. He introduced himself as Victor and said it was nice meeting me, I shook his hand and gave him my first name as well and he left with his family.
I ended up purchasing a book and a t-shirt, and a few postcards. The t-shirt I am in love with. It is made out of bamboo, so it is environmentally friendly, and has Carlsbad Caverns in beautiful script down my left side. I picked up Ellie, who was soaking wet from being in her water bowl, and we left the top of the mountain.
On the way down the winding roads we stopped at one of the trails and walked to the end where there was a wonderful outlook over the canyons. Ellie got plenty of exercise, and we both enjoyed the warmth of the sun after spending the 
previous day in a winter wonderland. The sun was nearing it’s position for set and I decided to head back to the hotel which was about 20 minutes away.
I decided that since I was in New Mexico the dinner of choice should be some authentic Mexican. I headed into town and discovered that since it was Sunday the couple shacks I had seen along the main drive were closed. I decided to use my borrowed GPS to locate a Mexican restaurant.
Here’s the time to explain the characteristics of the GPS I borrowed for this trip. It is older, and when you plug it into your cigarette lighter outlet it takes several minutes, sometimes up to 10 or 15, to warm up and figure out where you are. It also has a very sensitive power cable that if you touch the wrong way restarts the unit, and you have to wait again for it to find where you are. It is also a little out of date with the information in it. After the GPS warmed up I followed it to a couple places that were closed, and the final attempt at finding a restaurant ended at an empty grass lot.
Much less to say, and a little amusing, I ended up getting Taco Bell.
It was a wonderful day and I will certainly treasure these experiences for a lifetime. Tomorrow I continue my journey to another land, I will be driving almost 1000 miles to the west, back to my birthplace.
GEOLOGIC NOTES:
In this blog I use speleothem and formation interchangeably. Formation is not necessarily an appropriate term for a speleothem, but it is used widely to describe stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, cave pearls, cave popcorn and more. If you want to get technical, these definitions are:
SPELEOTHEM:
any of the crystalline deposits that form in a solution cave after the creation of the cave itself. These deposits are generally composed of calcium carbonate dissolved from the surrounding limestone by groundwater. Carbon dioxide carried in the water is released as the water encounters the cave air; this reduces the water’s capacity to hold calcite in solution and causes the calcite to be deposited. These deposits may accumulate to form stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, helictites, cave pearls, and many other formations. Deposits formed along ceiling cracks may produce drip curtains or draperies that may then reach the floor to become walls. Speleothems may grow in pools to form the nodular encrustations of cave coral or the natural dams that continually elevate themselves through accretion of calcite. The pure white of the calcium carbonate is often tinted with hues of red, yellow, and gray and may even be translucent. The growth rate of speleothems is highly variable due to seasonal variations in the rate of flow, carbon dioxide content, and other factors. Caves owe most of their beauty and much of their interest to these secondary growths.
FORMATION:
| 5. | geology |
| a. the fundamental lithostratigraphic unit | |
| b. a series of rocks with certain characteristics in common. |
I would also like to add some information about Carlsbad Caverns versus the caves I usually visit in the limestone beds of Missouri. You may notice that most caves are carved out of water, and tend to have a long, linear shape to them as the groundwater travels in a stream or certain direction. After the limestone, or other soluable rock formation, is dissolved, the deposit of speleothems can begin. As the groundwater continues to trickly through the bedrock and it reaches the cave the water is enriched in minerals that get redeposited on the walls, ceilings, floor, etc of the cave. This is how a speleothem is, generally, formed.
Carlsbad Caverns has a very large and open nature to each of their rooms, and while the speleothems in Carlsad Caverns are formed in the same manner as above, the cave itself formed in a different manner than many of the caves we visit in the midwest.
Somewhere between 4 and 6 million years ago, water that was rich in hydrogen-sulfide mixed with other rainwaters to form sulfuric acid. It is this acid that allowed the caverns to form in large, magnificent rooms rather than long, lineated passages like those we are so familiar with.
For more information about this, I highly recommend visiting the National Park Service’s website on Carlsbad Caverns, particularly this page: