Spider Webs and Cottonwood Down...
9/22/2022
Just in time for the first day of fall, our summer memoirs…
Baby hummingbird inside nest
Summer in the desert grows hotter and hotter. Like a test to see just how far one can be pushed to the limits before breaking, the heat builds until the plants and the people are on edge and wondering just how much more of this can we take… and then the rains come. We had a lovely monsoon downpour in late June, and then a couple weeks of rain every day after that. You could almost hear the land sigh with relief. In the garden, I transitioned from providing water daily to clearing out the jungle of weeds that opportunistically leap up out of the ground once the raindrops start to fall. It’s amazing how quickly the plants grow with the rainwater. I don’t know what is so different about it than the water from the hose, but the plants know the difference and it seemed overnight that my squash plants were 500 times larger than the day before. The change of pace from watering to weeding was a welcome one, and the cooler, overcast days were lovely to have extended working hours out in the yard.
I found a tiny hummingbird nest down in the bosque, on a salt cedar branch hanging right over the walking path. It was so small it probably would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the mother bird flitting nervously around as I passed by. A tiny beak and featherless pink body lay in the nest and tucked itself down closer as I briefly inspected it – just long enough to take a photo and then be on my way so the mama could calm down a bit. (Do humming birds ever calm down?) The nest was made of white cottonwood fluff, held together with spider webs.
Sometimes life seems so precarious that it’s held together with gossamer threads, just waiting to snap. Spider webs are much stronger than they appear, though. On Independence Day, a Monday this year, my husband tested positive for COVID. We all put on masks and he kept to himself, secluded in the back bedroom. I opened all the windows and turned on as many fans as I could for air circulation. By Wednesday, I was feeling sick, as was my 4 year old. He had a fever that kept spiking, and I was exhausted. I still had to care for the household and keep us fed and hydrated. I ordered grocery delivery that was mostly liquids. What an amazing thing, to be able to hop on the computer and order sustenance to be delivered to your door. I’m so grateful for the folks working those gigs, though I know it can’t be easy. I tried to order medicine to bring down the little guy’s fever, and that was a little harder. My first order was cancelled because they were out of stock of everything I’d ordered, but the subsequent order went through fairly smoothly.
Thursday night I stayed up the whole night. Not on purpose, it just happened that way. I still felt horrible, and had very little energy, but when I went outside just before dawn on Friday morning, I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life so far. Words don’t do it justice. The feeling was so deep and permeating, but it seems simplistic when I write it here. I watched the sky lighten, and the clouds lit up with color. I went to eat some of the petals from the Rose of Sharon – related to hibiscus, and in the mallow family, they are all rather mucilaginous and provided a soothing effect to my sore throat. I felt at peace and knew everything was how it should be, and would soon be fine. A holy presence fell over me, at least for a short while.
When I went back inside, my older son was awake and said he was feeling sore and achy and needed to soak his feet in Epsom salts. I put together his foot soak tub, and he proceeded to throw up. He tested positive, too. So we all took off our masks, and my husband came out of isolation in the back bedroom, since we all had it now. Despite my feeling of calm and clarity earlier in the day, later I was thrown into despair as my feelings of overwhelm built once again and I broke down and cried with the weight of it all. I thought my son had a rash on his stomach and had been reading about COVID symptoms in children, and a rash with a fever was a sign of something very serious. I didn’t know that he had put a hot water bottle on his stomach, and that was what caused the marks on his skin. After two years of being extremely cautious and thinking that perhaps, just maybe, we’d get away with not getting sick, we all got sick. It was my worst fear of the past two years, and here it was facing me head on. We all were fine and had mild cases which required no hospitalization, so by all accounts we were fortunate, but it was truly one of the most trying weeks I’ve had in my entire life.
I found a tiny hummingbird nest down in the bosque, on a salt cedar branch hanging right over the walking path. It was so small it probably would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the mother bird flitting nervously around as I passed by. A tiny beak and featherless pink body lay in the nest and tucked itself down closer as I briefly inspected it – just long enough to take a photo and then be on my way so the mama could calm down a bit. (Do humming birds ever calm down?) The nest was made of white cottonwood fluff, held together with spider webs.
Sometimes life seems so precarious that it’s held together with gossamer threads, just waiting to snap. Spider webs are much stronger than they appear, though. On Independence Day, a Monday this year, my husband tested positive for COVID. We all put on masks and he kept to himself, secluded in the back bedroom. I opened all the windows and turned on as many fans as I could for air circulation. By Wednesday, I was feeling sick, as was my 4 year old. He had a fever that kept spiking, and I was exhausted. I still had to care for the household and keep us fed and hydrated. I ordered grocery delivery that was mostly liquids. What an amazing thing, to be able to hop on the computer and order sustenance to be delivered to your door. I’m so grateful for the folks working those gigs, though I know it can’t be easy. I tried to order medicine to bring down the little guy’s fever, and that was a little harder. My first order was cancelled because they were out of stock of everything I’d ordered, but the subsequent order went through fairly smoothly.
Thursday night I stayed up the whole night. Not on purpose, it just happened that way. I still felt horrible, and had very little energy, but when I went outside just before dawn on Friday morning, I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life so far. Words don’t do it justice. The feeling was so deep and permeating, but it seems simplistic when I write it here. I watched the sky lighten, and the clouds lit up with color. I went to eat some of the petals from the Rose of Sharon – related to hibiscus, and in the mallow family, they are all rather mucilaginous and provided a soothing effect to my sore throat. I felt at peace and knew everything was how it should be, and would soon be fine. A holy presence fell over me, at least for a short while.
When I went back inside, my older son was awake and said he was feeling sore and achy and needed to soak his feet in Epsom salts. I put together his foot soak tub, and he proceeded to throw up. He tested positive, too. So we all took off our masks, and my husband came out of isolation in the back bedroom, since we all had it now. Despite my feeling of calm and clarity earlier in the day, later I was thrown into despair as my feelings of overwhelm built once again and I broke down and cried with the weight of it all. I thought my son had a rash on his stomach and had been reading about COVID symptoms in children, and a rash with a fever was a sign of something very serious. I didn’t know that he had put a hot water bottle on his stomach, and that was what caused the marks on his skin. After two years of being extremely cautious and thinking that perhaps, just maybe, we’d get away with not getting sick, we all got sick. It was my worst fear of the past two years, and here it was facing me head on. We all were fine and had mild cases which required no hospitalization, so by all accounts we were fortunate, but it was truly one of the most trying weeks I’ve had in my entire life.
Our Lady of Sorrows, mural by Zachary Miles Martinez
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We had planned to take a vacation, but I was unsure if we would be able to do so, since my husband had taken a week off when he got sick, to isolate. Since we hadn’t taken any trips for the past two years he had extra time off, and was able to request a further week off at the end of July/beginning of August, just before my older son went back to school. We took a trip down to the southern half of the state, spending six days down in the baking heat. We meandered our way down to Carlsbad, stopping to explore Quarai. I over-plan most vacations, so the hour I thought we’d spend there turned into three and lunch, and we left the house in the morning about two hours later than I’d planned, too. I wasn’t upset about any of it, just enjoying the time and reminding myself not to plan too much. B took his Junior Ranger oath at the visitor center, and both boys got a JR badge and paper ranger hat. Ranger Donna, originally from New York, but now working her dream job at Quarai, was so kind to the boys. She said they reminded her of her own grandkids. It was slow, so she was reading outside when we arrived. It was a Tuesday, so I can imagine not too many visitors venture out that way during the week.
The ruins, which I’d visited once on a motorcycle trip probably 15 years ago, were still as impressive as I’d found them before. We had lunch under a massive cottonwood, then got back in the car to head further south. Ranger Donna advised us to visit Gran Quivira, and we hope to one day on a later trip. We passed the entrance to it, on one of the 90 degree turns on Highway 55, but kept on driving towards a giant rain mushroom and down the road lined with waving grasses dancing in the wind. I stuck my hand out the window and hit a poor wasp. It dropped into the car, onto my lap. I wasn’t sure if it was dead or stunned, but it was curled up into a defensive position, with its stinger ready, so I used some paper to scoop it up and deposit it back out the window. Wasps have such beautiful eyes. I thought about using my watercolors to paint it, and maybe I will, but I haven’t yet.
The ruins, which I’d visited once on a motorcycle trip probably 15 years ago, were still as impressive as I’d found them before. We had lunch under a massive cottonwood, then got back in the car to head further south. Ranger Donna advised us to visit Gran Quivira, and we hope to one day on a later trip. We passed the entrance to it, on one of the 90 degree turns on Highway 55, but kept on driving towards a giant rain mushroom and down the road lined with waving grasses dancing in the wind. I stuck my hand out the window and hit a poor wasp. It dropped into the car, onto my lap. I wasn’t sure if it was dead or stunned, but it was curled up into a defensive position, with its stinger ready, so I used some paper to scoop it up and deposit it back out the window. Wasps have such beautiful eyes. I thought about using my watercolors to paint it, and maybe I will, but I haven’t yet.
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I thought we’d get to Roswell in time to visit the UFO museum, but we arrived half an hour after they’d closed, so we drove around a bit on the main street and shouted out any aliens we saw. There were quite a few. My favorites were the old glass street lamps, in sort of an oval shape, that had slanted alien eyes painted on them.
We headed further south, passing a beautiful blue lake, and then through Artesia and into Carlsbad. We stopped for takeout, and then drove another 20 minutes to our motel in Whites City, just at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns park. There was not a whole lot in Whites City. The motel was nice, and there’s a water park with two big slides, a splash pad with a giant mushroom and pirate ship, and a small pool. It was a fantastic way to spend the afternoons. The cave pass was good for three days, so we booked our room for three nights. The first night, we were exhausted and just went into the room and ate and fell asleep. We had breakfast as the restaurant associated with the motel. The folks were super friendly; there was not a whole lot to choose from on the menu, and the prices were… touristy. So that was the only time we ate there. The caverns were incredible. I’d been there many, many years ago, when I was 4 or 5, maybe. I remembered very little about that previous visit, but certain formations and paths jogged my memory as we went by. Some things have changed, I’m sure, like the updated visitor center, and the LED lighting, but the rock formations have stayed the same for millions of years, if only growing slightly, or ruined by the humans coming to see the beauty. From the previous trip, I remember bothering my brother with questions about the formations he was looking for, and him being disappointed that he couldn’t go on one of the guided ranger tours. I also remember being picked up in a golf cart and given a ride back to the elevator area, and my mom in the elevator with my baby sister. I’m not sure how many of these ‘memories’ are true, and how many are things I’ve made up over the years, incorporating images and stories picked up or created by my mind. It’s hard to trust old memories the more distance years place between us. It is also interesting how different recall and recognition are and how they can bring up entirely forgotten moments from the past. I’d driven along the road to Carlsbad many years before, on a trip down to Padre Island in Texas. I had largely forgotten the trip, and certainly the drive wasn’t very memorable, but as we passed through the scenery, I realized that I recognized it, remembering my mom sketching rolling hills and rivers, and even the weird little café that we stopped at for lunch, though not again this time.
I learned so much on the trip to the caves. Amelia Earhart signed up to be a ranger there, but she never did make it back. Supposedly, when she was exploring the caverns, she said it was the most exhilarating adventure she’d ever been on. We hiked down the natural entrance the first day, then took the elevator back up to the top. We emerged into blasting afternoon sun on a 106 degree desert day, so we played in the pool for the remainder of the afternoon, only venturing out again near sunset to go see the bat flight. The bats were one of the most peaceful, surreal parts of the whole trip. We had to sit very quietly on the rock amphitheater just outside the cave entrance and wait for the bats to start swirling around and emerge into the twilight to hunt moths and other bugs. Jim White, who is thought to be the first person to explore inside the caves, though the caves were known to the indigenous people of the area, saw what he thought was large clouds of smoke, but instead turned out to be the swarms of bats exiting the cave. He then began to explore the inside and is credited with mapping out many of the paths in the caves that you can see today, mostly by himself, with just a candle lantern.
We were able to secure spots on the King’s Palace tour, as they have walk-up room most days, despite being sold out online for all the days we were visiting. (When we were checking in for our reserved entry time on the second day, another woman was also checking in at the window next to me. The ranger asked her if they would like to hike in or take the elevator down. She replied, “Well, is it scenic?” asking about the hike down, as she peered out the doorway towards the desert landscape outside, the agave and yucca baking in the sun. I know I must have had a look of disbelief on my face, and I tried not to laugh as I looked into the eyes of the ranger that was helping me, and we shared the acknowledgement of the ridiculousness of that question. The ranger helping the lady quite politely said, “Oh, yes, it’s very scenic,” while yet another ranger leaning against the wall behind the service windows repeated the lady’s question quietly, but incredulously. “Is it scenic?”
On the King’s Palace tour, the ranger had a candle lantern that he blew out after turning out all the lights, and we sat in complete darkness while being told the story of Jim White being down in the caves one time and had only three matches and his candle went out. B shared his thoughts with the group: “I liked it better with the lights on,” and we all laughed in the darkness, in agreement. The ranger pretended to not be able to light the lantern, and we were all pretty relieved when he did relight it. The formations in the Kings Palace were amazing, despite the fact that over tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pieces are said to have gone missing since the caverns became a popular place to visit. They used to have concerts and weddings down in the caves, and even a prom from the local high school. A handful of movies have been filmed down in the caves, too. We walked past the campsite from the 1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth in the King’s Palace. Folks love the caves and formations so much, they want to take a piece of it home with them. There is a delicate balance between conservation and appreciation of a site. The nearby, more recently explored (being explored), Lechuguilla cave is more protected, and only a few explorers and researchers are approved by the NPS to visit it.
The caverns were almost overwhelming in size and beauty, though the conditions for good photos were difficult. The low light, and the lack of a tripod (I was unsure if I was allowed to bring one into the cave) made for more grainy images, and the scale is something that is hard to comprehend in person, let alone convey in an image. Occasionally, I had a person backlit against a formation and that kind of gave an idea of just how massive some of the formations were, but most of the images I have from the caves are hard to tell the size. Most of the formations are also the same colors, so they sort of blend into one another. I tried to use the lighting to the best of my ability to give a sense of space. The lighting, now LED lights, was designed by a movie set lighting specialist, to highlight the most impressive structures, but also to keep much of the darkness of the cave to preserve the overall atmosphere. All of the lights are turned out each night, and there are backup lights run by generators, which can also power the elevators, in case of a power failure.
We headed further south, passing a beautiful blue lake, and then through Artesia and into Carlsbad. We stopped for takeout, and then drove another 20 minutes to our motel in Whites City, just at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns park. There was not a whole lot in Whites City. The motel was nice, and there’s a water park with two big slides, a splash pad with a giant mushroom and pirate ship, and a small pool. It was a fantastic way to spend the afternoons. The cave pass was good for three days, so we booked our room for three nights. The first night, we were exhausted and just went into the room and ate and fell asleep. We had breakfast as the restaurant associated with the motel. The folks were super friendly; there was not a whole lot to choose from on the menu, and the prices were… touristy. So that was the only time we ate there. The caverns were incredible. I’d been there many, many years ago, when I was 4 or 5, maybe. I remembered very little about that previous visit, but certain formations and paths jogged my memory as we went by. Some things have changed, I’m sure, like the updated visitor center, and the LED lighting, but the rock formations have stayed the same for millions of years, if only growing slightly, or ruined by the humans coming to see the beauty. From the previous trip, I remember bothering my brother with questions about the formations he was looking for, and him being disappointed that he couldn’t go on one of the guided ranger tours. I also remember being picked up in a golf cart and given a ride back to the elevator area, and my mom in the elevator with my baby sister. I’m not sure how many of these ‘memories’ are true, and how many are things I’ve made up over the years, incorporating images and stories picked up or created by my mind. It’s hard to trust old memories the more distance years place between us. It is also interesting how different recall and recognition are and how they can bring up entirely forgotten moments from the past. I’d driven along the road to Carlsbad many years before, on a trip down to Padre Island in Texas. I had largely forgotten the trip, and certainly the drive wasn’t very memorable, but as we passed through the scenery, I realized that I recognized it, remembering my mom sketching rolling hills and rivers, and even the weird little café that we stopped at for lunch, though not again this time.
I learned so much on the trip to the caves. Amelia Earhart signed up to be a ranger there, but she never did make it back. Supposedly, when she was exploring the caverns, she said it was the most exhilarating adventure she’d ever been on. We hiked down the natural entrance the first day, then took the elevator back up to the top. We emerged into blasting afternoon sun on a 106 degree desert day, so we played in the pool for the remainder of the afternoon, only venturing out again near sunset to go see the bat flight. The bats were one of the most peaceful, surreal parts of the whole trip. We had to sit very quietly on the rock amphitheater just outside the cave entrance and wait for the bats to start swirling around and emerge into the twilight to hunt moths and other bugs. Jim White, who is thought to be the first person to explore inside the caves, though the caves were known to the indigenous people of the area, saw what he thought was large clouds of smoke, but instead turned out to be the swarms of bats exiting the cave. He then began to explore the inside and is credited with mapping out many of the paths in the caves that you can see today, mostly by himself, with just a candle lantern.
We were able to secure spots on the King’s Palace tour, as they have walk-up room most days, despite being sold out online for all the days we were visiting. (When we were checking in for our reserved entry time on the second day, another woman was also checking in at the window next to me. The ranger asked her if they would like to hike in or take the elevator down. She replied, “Well, is it scenic?” asking about the hike down, as she peered out the doorway towards the desert landscape outside, the agave and yucca baking in the sun. I know I must have had a look of disbelief on my face, and I tried not to laugh as I looked into the eyes of the ranger that was helping me, and we shared the acknowledgement of the ridiculousness of that question. The ranger helping the lady quite politely said, “Oh, yes, it’s very scenic,” while yet another ranger leaning against the wall behind the service windows repeated the lady’s question quietly, but incredulously. “Is it scenic?”
On the King’s Palace tour, the ranger had a candle lantern that he blew out after turning out all the lights, and we sat in complete darkness while being told the story of Jim White being down in the caves one time and had only three matches and his candle went out. B shared his thoughts with the group: “I liked it better with the lights on,” and we all laughed in the darkness, in agreement. The ranger pretended to not be able to light the lantern, and we were all pretty relieved when he did relight it. The formations in the Kings Palace were amazing, despite the fact that over tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pieces are said to have gone missing since the caverns became a popular place to visit. They used to have concerts and weddings down in the caves, and even a prom from the local high school. A handful of movies have been filmed down in the caves, too. We walked past the campsite from the 1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth in the King’s Palace. Folks love the caves and formations so much, they want to take a piece of it home with them. There is a delicate balance between conservation and appreciation of a site. The nearby, more recently explored (being explored), Lechuguilla cave is more protected, and only a few explorers and researchers are approved by the NPS to visit it.
The caverns were almost overwhelming in size and beauty, though the conditions for good photos were difficult. The low light, and the lack of a tripod (I was unsure if I was allowed to bring one into the cave) made for more grainy images, and the scale is something that is hard to comprehend in person, let alone convey in an image. Occasionally, I had a person backlit against a formation and that kind of gave an idea of just how massive some of the formations were, but most of the images I have from the caves are hard to tell the size. Most of the formations are also the same colors, so they sort of blend into one another. I tried to use the lighting to the best of my ability to give a sense of space. The lighting, now LED lights, was designed by a movie set lighting specialist, to highlight the most impressive structures, but also to keep much of the darkness of the cave to preserve the overall atmosphere. All of the lights are turned out each night, and there are backup lights run by generators, which can also power the elevators, in case of a power failure.
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Because there weren’t too many options for food out in Whites City, we’d make the 20 minute drive back into Carlsbad several times over our stay to try out some different places for food. We did find some good ones, and had some… interesting experiences as well. The motel had a list of restaurants by category, and after the bat flight, D was asleep, and B decided he REALLY wanted a California roll… We decided to try the Japanese restaurant listed, but talked on the way about not having really high expectations for sushi out in the middle of the desert. We got to the place, and tried to park, but their small parking lot was overrun with large trucks, sticking out past the lines and ends of the spaces. One side was so crammed, we couldn’t fit through the drive lane, so we had to go back out on the street to try the other side of the parking lot. Carlsbad area has a lot of oil and gas production, and it seems that most of the people who work in the fields there drive large, white trucks. And they all seemed to be there, in this one parking lot at 9 pm on a Thursday. So we found a parking space. I debated carrying the sleeping child in and asking for a booth, but then we decided on take-out. I sent my husband in to get a menu, since one kid was asleep and the other didn’t want to get out of the car. He went in and came back out fairly quickly. “Don’t ask for a to-go menu,” he told me, as he passed me the menu and got back in the car. I’d found the online ordering anyway, while he’d gone in, and the prices online were cheaper for many of the items than on the menu, so we decided to place an online order and then go fill up the gas tank while we waited for our food. My husband tried to explain the ‘restaurant’ to me. “It’s a sports bar,” he said. “Oh,” I said, and I noticed that the sign in the parking lot was two-sided. On the side facing the road from the direction we drove in from, it was a plain white sign with, like, “Japanese Restaurant” on it. On the other was a speedometer set at about 120 mph, with the name of the sports bar. They were the same place. We went to the gas station and then found our way back through the labyrinth of white trucks into another parking space. I thought I’d paid online, as all my contact info was auto-filled for me when the order was completed. Hubby went in to pick up the food, and stayed in for quite a while. I started getting nervous. There were a few sort of strange folks wandering around out by the road. Finally, husband came back out to the car. Without food. He said that they had argued with him about it being paid, and even brought the owner out to talk with him. I said I’d go in and take care of it. He warned me that the bouncer came up to him right away and checked his ID, so to make sure I had mine. I did. I went in the door. The bouncer seemed really happy to have another woman in the place (there was one seated at the bar; she seemed to be with her boyfriend and was berating the waitresses…). He didn’t check my ID. I said I was there to pick up a to-go order. The place was packed with guys. The waitresses wore black outfits that “looked like Coyote Ugly, wearing Hooters outfits, but black, with fishnets,” according to my husband, who is obviously an expert on such things. There was REALLY LOUD MUSIC and flashing lights. I tried to watch baseball or something else playing on one of the screens, just so I didn’t feel like I was looking somewhere or at someone oddly. The bouncer asked if I’d like to have a seat. I declined, told him I was feeling overwhelmed. He said he feels like that too, sometimes, but that this was a slow night… I watched some more baseball. The woman at the bar was calling the waitress names, and she came over and sat in one of the chairs the bouncer offered me. It took a while for the food to come. I started chatting with the bouncer. He doesn’t like the caves. Too touristy. We talked about the drilling operation happening right off the highway on the way to the caverns. When he found out we were ‘locals’ from Albuquerque, we talked about the Rio Grande drying up, and the heavy monsoon rains. The food came. I signed the bill, they hadn’t added in my pre-tip to the total, so I awkwardly did distracted addition with carrying to get my total. I felt like it took entirely too long to do a simple math problem. There was a space underneath the tip line for ‘additional tip.’ I didn’t put an additional tip. The sushi was surprisingly good.
The boys were working on collecting Junior Ranger badges, B was talking with Ranger Chris at Carlsbad Caverns, since interviewing a ranger was part of the book of activities. D had been practicing his Cuphead stance pretty much the entire time we were exploring the caverns. His four year old body is built very similarly to the shape of Cuphead, and he has the bouncing squat down so he does look a lot like the character. He told Ranger Chris that he was being Cuphead, and I mistook the blank look on the young ranger’s face to be a sign that he either didn’t understand what my son was saying (a regular occurrence with a talkative young person) or that he was unfamiliar with the video game reference. After a few moments of silence, just before I was ready to step in with an explanation, Ranger Chris’s face lit up with shared Cuphead appreciation. Still trying to be a professional, with the “Yes, ma’ams,” etc., he proceeded to converse with my kiddos about the difficulties of the game. When another ranger passed by on his way to his turn in the information booth, Ranger Chris motioned to D and told the other ranger, “Cuphead,” and the other ranger, an older gentleman with a cane started doing his bouncing squatting impression, too, saying that even he’ll jump for Cuphead. I’m not sure that connecting over a video game was the goal of the ranger interview, but I think we all came away from the experience feeling a little more light-hearted. It was quite possibly my favorite part of the visit to the Caverns.
We visited at a good time, and had no negative experiences there, however just a few weeks later, around 200 visitors were stranded there due to flooding of the highway from heavy monsoon rains.
The boys were working on collecting Junior Ranger badges, B was talking with Ranger Chris at Carlsbad Caverns, since interviewing a ranger was part of the book of activities. D had been practicing his Cuphead stance pretty much the entire time we were exploring the caverns. His four year old body is built very similarly to the shape of Cuphead, and he has the bouncing squat down so he does look a lot like the character. He told Ranger Chris that he was being Cuphead, and I mistook the blank look on the young ranger’s face to be a sign that he either didn’t understand what my son was saying (a regular occurrence with a talkative young person) or that he was unfamiliar with the video game reference. After a few moments of silence, just before I was ready to step in with an explanation, Ranger Chris’s face lit up with shared Cuphead appreciation. Still trying to be a professional, with the “Yes, ma’ams,” etc., he proceeded to converse with my kiddos about the difficulties of the game. When another ranger passed by on his way to his turn in the information booth, Ranger Chris motioned to D and told the other ranger, “Cuphead,” and the other ranger, an older gentleman with a cane started doing his bouncing squatting impression, too, saying that even he’ll jump for Cuphead. I’m not sure that connecting over a video game was the goal of the ranger interview, but I think we all came away from the experience feeling a little more light-hearted. It was quite possibly my favorite part of the visit to the Caverns.
We visited at a good time, and had no negative experiences there, however just a few weeks later, around 200 visitors were stranded there due to flooding of the highway from heavy monsoon rains.
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I hadn’t been back to White Sands for a few years, since we’d camped there with 4-year-old B under the full moon. We had a brief visit, in the evening before we headed to Las Cruces, but the entrance ticket was good for 6 days, so we planned on coming back for another visit on our way back home to Albuquerque. Driving away from the dunes, there had been a rainstorm and the Organ mountains were lit up with sunbeams, highlighting layers and layers of jagged peaks in a surreal afternoon landscape. After the weekend in Las Cruces, we visited White Sands again, melting in the afternoon heat until a storm blew clouds over the sun. We enjoyed the shade for about an hour and a half, and then the wind picked up and the sand felt like little glass daggers against my skin, so we packed back into the car and headed for home.
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Driving home, a giant Tarantula hawk wasp flew in front of the car as I was driving by, and I cringed, hoping it had changed direction at the last minute. I saw it tumbling in the rearview mirror, and I wasn’t sure if it had been struck by the car or if it had simply gotten caught in the slipstream behind the vehicle. I hoped it was okay. The clown beetles, giant black ‘stink bugs’ were unavoidable, though. The beetles are named for their behavior for standing on their heads and sticking their abdomen into the air, and emitting a foul-smelling odor. They are a common sight in the desert, and one of the earliest memories of insects I have. I learned that there is another bug more commonly known as a ‘stink bug’ in other parts of the country – a green or brownish colored insect with a body that is roughly shaped like a pentagram. I found one in my sink a few years ago and had to identify it, because I had never seen one before. The black desert variety of stink bugs are also called Darkling Beetles, or Pinacate Beetles. There were so many of them, and despite being the only vehicle on the road for almost the entire drive, I simply steered the car straight and hoped they would make their way on either side of the tires.
I was happy to return home, and even the rather dirty roads of Albuquerque, strewn with debris washed in by the monsoon rains, were a welcome sight. I reflected on all the places we’d seen over the past few days, as well as a couple interesting signs we’d passed, but not stopped at. The ‘Sufi’ of Torreon, signs, which I envisioned to be some strange old dude out in a mud cave somewhere. My interest was peaked, so I looked it up when we got back home and found a website offering classes at a compound out in the mountains there, and also in-memoriam posts for the founder who passed away earlier this year. Old dude, check; mud cave, less so. The other sign, which gave me horror movie vibes, was a hand-painted sign in a gravel lot in Organ: 50 Cent Balloons – Live Snakes. Sounds like a place to take the kids. It’s probably very interesting.
I was happy to return home, and even the rather dirty roads of Albuquerque, strewn with debris washed in by the monsoon rains, were a welcome sight. I reflected on all the places we’d seen over the past few days, as well as a couple interesting signs we’d passed, but not stopped at. The ‘Sufi’ of Torreon, signs, which I envisioned to be some strange old dude out in a mud cave somewhere. My interest was peaked, so I looked it up when we got back home and found a website offering classes at a compound out in the mountains there, and also in-memoriam posts for the founder who passed away earlier this year. Old dude, check; mud cave, less so. The other sign, which gave me horror movie vibes, was a hand-painted sign in a gravel lot in Organ: 50 Cent Balloons – Live Snakes. Sounds like a place to take the kids. It’s probably very interesting.
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