Mistakes Were Made - Days 8-9

Perhaps it was because I never had an issue with weather on my first trip. Or maybe I should not have set my tent under a tree. I could have planned the route the night before and used the internet to make a more informed decision. I was getting radio weather forecasts from Dallas, TX, Tulsa, OK and Little Rock, AR, which were the 3 large cities surrounding my camping location, and all said to expect late afternoon thunderstorms the next day. They said nothing about either rain overnight or weather at the top of the Ouachita Forest. Whatever the reason, I made the mistake of camping out last night, and I was miserable.
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I started out yesterday and headed for a short scenic through the Wichita Mountains in OK. Even though it was overcast, it was quite a pleasant drive, with nice scenery and quite a few buffalo and longhorns. The highlight was the top of Mount Scott (me?) and panoramic views on all sides.
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After that, I started zig-zagging across the Oklahoma countryside for another scenic drive, the Talimena Scenic Byway connecting Talihina, OK and Mena, AR. The only reason this road was built was for the scenery, and every half mile or so there was a pullover with a lofty viewpoint of the Ouachita National Forest. And with the leaves just starting to turn it is certainly the right time of year to be passing through.
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About 2/3 of the way through, and just across the Arkansas border, lies the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge and campground, my bunk for the night. I could have stayed in the lodge, but it was only barely drizzling. Plus there were about 10 other campsites already occupied, so I went for it and mistakenly decided to camp. I should have noticed that all the other campers were in RV's or 5th wheels.
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Having bought 2 bundles of wood at the lodge, I popped the tent open and set up camp before returning to the comfy lodge for an awful buffet dinner whose only highlight was that I didn't throw up.
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Returning to camp, there was no precipitation; however, there was quite a bit of moisture around the campsite and a bit in my tent. The ever present cloud cover had dropped down and seemed like I could jump up and touch it. Worse was the fact that the wind had picked up and felt gale force flowing across the top of the mountains.
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It was around 7PM and the last bit of daylight was slipping away. I had to get a fire started fast. I started with a crumpled up trail book under a pyramid of wood. I went through half a lighters worth of fluid trying to get the trail book to flame up, but it would only smolder. I went to thinner paper, and when I could get the paper to catch, the wind would put it out in seconds. Next I was inside my car lighting a torch of paper that also was no match for the wind. After setting up a wind barrier of luggage around the fire pit I was able to keep the flame going for a half minute or so by burning any spare paper I could find in the car, but the wood was no where near catching. Finally an hour and a half later, and using half a box of thin highly flammable tissue paper, I built a sustainable fire. A couple of hours later, I finished off the second bundle of wood, and wearing thermals and a couple extra layers, I snuggled in for bed.
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I woke first around 4AM...I think it was the sound of water that made me have to pee. I unzipped the tent, stood in the small puddle that had accumulated inside the tent, and poked my head out into a fog so dense I couldn't see my car 15 feet away. Though it wasn't raining, the fog was soaking the tree above and forming large droplets that were plunking on the top of the tent. An hour later this drum like sound would wake me for good. On very little restful sleep, and reeking of campfire smoke, I packed up camp using a camper headlight (thanks Beana!) to show the way step-by-step.
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At 6AM, in complete darkness and dense fog cover, I decided I had to get off the mountain stat. I backed the car out of the campsite, and turned to go forward and couldn't see the road through the glare of the lights on the fog. I stopped and opened the car user manuel to figure out how to turn on the fog lights for the first time and the book shows me a picture of the headlight column with the (not available on all models) fog light setting that was missing from my Pre.
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Going at a top speed of 8 MPH, I patiently followed the yellow center line down from the most miserable night I have had on all my travels. In my Top 5 list of worst nights, this is the first and only on the list.
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With the un-restful night, I pulled over for a catnap around 7AM and decided to re-evaluate the plan for the day. I awoke with the answer, and immediately called Buz. Within 5 minutes, Buz had gone to weather.com and informed me that the only reasonable direction to go was due East along a path I have taken twice before, straight across Arkansas and into Tennessee.

The silver lining on this cloudy day was that this route took me straight past Hot Springs NP.
This smallest of parks was created around a three block row of bath houses used even by presidents for the rejuvenating powers of the natural, pure spring waters that flow from the ground. A bath, spritz, sauna, hot towel wrap and superb massage later, and I was floating out of the Buckstaff spa totally relaxed. (Interestingly, I had the same "bath attendant", Walter, as I had 3 years ago. He said he's been there since '74 and I assume if I go back again 10 years from now, he'll be my bath attendant again.) I would describe the whole process again, but I already did last time I went to Hot Springs...see this link for that post if you want more details. http://myroadtrip07.blogspot.com/2007/08/arkansas-well-blow-me-down-its-awesome.html
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I guess the bath house cancels out the prior night's misery and that makes me about even. But I then had a really pleasant drive on the back roads of the AR and into Tennessee. I am half way through a sunny (thanks Buz) scenic drive and am comfortably holed away in a hotel in beautiful Henderson, TN. And I got to watch Survivor tonight!
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I think I might be completely stifled as far as weather tomorrow (there may be tornadoes in the area), but at least I'll be sure to check before heading out. If by chance the weather is descent, I might try the camping out thing one more time before hitting Jersey. But I certainly won't be camping out in cold, windy, rainy, foggy, miserable weather again!
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"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...won't get fooled again." - GWB

Recouping from Texas to Oklahoma - Day 7

It's the end of the first full week and I am finally feeling refreshed after a casual driving day that put miles behind me and rested my fatigued muscles.

I went North out of Odessa heading toward a scenic drive recommended by the National Geographic Scenic Highways and Byways book. The route to the drive brought me past active oil fields, cotton crops and many Texas Longhorn cattle. Since leaving Phoenix, I had not encountered such extensive use of the fields. It is also the first time I have been surrounded by so much flat land that I could see to the horizon in every direction unimpeded by any hills or mountains. Which means that after about of a half hour of all of it, it gets boring.

Fortunately, I had the scenic drive to break up the monotony. Often these drives have hikes or attractions and can take quite a while, but this was truly just a scenic drive. I sped 60 miles across varied agriculture, then down one side of a small colorful canyon and up the other side. And there was a pretty lake in the middle too. And that was about it for the driving excitement.

I ended up in Clinton, OK for the night at the cheapest hotel in town, but hey they have free WiFi which is my only requirement. But the reason I am in Clinton is because it is home to Jiggs Smokehouse. I went into this little shack of a restaurant and ordered the house favorite brisket sandwich. To be honest, I've had better. The brisket was a bit dry, but the sauce was superb, making it a pretty good meal (2 meals because it was so big.) I did not order the "Kitchen Sink". The Road Food authors described it as, "a somewhat ridiculous combo of beef, sausage and ham sandwiched between-are you ready?-a pair of sirloin steaks." Atkins heaven.

The real reason for going to Jiggs', wasn't for a meal anyway. It was for their famous beef jerky. For $17 I bought a pound of it. They only have one flavor and don't need more. It is like eating a shoe. If you are successful enough to separate a bite from the slab, you then need to soak it in your mouth for a little while to get it soft enough to chew. This is exactly my opinion of what the perfect jerky should be.

I haven't figured out what comes next, but it looks like the weather is going to get sloppy here in OK, so the option of finding a place to camp out in tomorrow will be determined by the weather.

Big Bend - Days 5 - 6

Big Bend National Park is remote. In a Southwest corner of Texas along the Rio Grande, anyone going to this park is not just passing through, but is really committed to seeing what this park has to offer. And it has a lot to offer.

Leaving from just two towns away, it took me nearly 3 hours to get to the entrance to the park. Once there, I took the recommendation of the entry ranger and started with the Max Ross Scenic drive. This out and back drive presented spectacular and diverse panoramas of the

various landscapes. I also saw many roadrunners, a desert rat, some deer and a fox. But the highlight of the drive came at it's furthest point the Santa Elena Canyon.

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A 2 mile hike up and down into the canyon on the US side was strenuous yet beautiful as massive rock carved by the Rio towered above on both sides. A mile in you reach the endpoint where there was an almost beach like area right at river level that a dozen or so people sat sunning and admiring the remote location. After returning back out of the canyon, I lingered at the narrowest point of the river and threw some rocks over to Mexico. I'm exporting America; this country is just a little bit smaller today than it was yesterday.

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I asked a ranger, a tourist and a camper where I should set up camp for the night and the responses were unanimous - The Basin. Chisos Basin campground turned out to be at the center of the volcano that long ago helped form some of the more dramatic features of this park. The drive into the volcano was dramatic, but once I set up camp and had a chance to appreciate my surroundings, I went around in circles just marveling at the massive geologic structures forming a rim around bed for the night.

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Have you ever seen a sunset from the bottom of a volcano? I have. Actually it wasn't that great of a sunset. It seems for a sunset to be great, you have to be able to see for a long distance in order to get the sky colors that make it special.

Following the sunset and a bite to eat, I went for a stroll with the intention of striking up a conversation with the guys who were luxuriously camped caddy corner to my spot. Oddly, it worked, and I spent the rest of the night with Tom and Dooley. They were in from Austin for an 8 day vacation, continuing a tradition they've had for the last 27 years. We spent the hours with them generously offering me beer and wine and me accepting. They gave me advice about what to see the next day and regaled me with stories of their adventures at Big Ben. I asked if I should be worried about the bears and mountain lions in the Basin and the park, and they said in all their 27 years they had never seen either. I couldn't thank them enough for their hospitality and entertainment.

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Up and packed in time to see the sun come over the rim of the volcano, I started out on the Window Trail. This 4.4 mile (round trip) trail started from the camp and went all they way to a crack in the volcano that ran down to the Basin level. I didn't see anyone on the trail the whole way out, so I think I was the first to the window that day.

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As I approached the Window and the wind roared in at me, two monoliths stood in the frame, and took center stage to the backdrop of the expansive desert below. My adrenaline rose with each baby step I took toward the edge. The edge dropped off slowly and tempted me to inch along as close as I could. Eventually, I was on my butt, inching forward. I was hoping to see to the bottom , but as I put my foot into a precarious spot, my fear of height overtook me and I could go no farther. After carefully backing away, I sat for a spell just enjoying the experience. I ran into the campground hosts on the way back on the trail and asked if I might have been able to go further and they said no...had I gone much further, I could have plummeted to my death - not the way I wanted to see the bottom.

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But when I met the camp hosts, that was not the death prospect that they first alerted me to. They froze me in my steps, hushed me, pointed and said, "Bear." I turned to follow their directional signal, and no more than 30 feet away from me was a 300 pound black bear foraging for berries. His (or her) back was to us and never seemed to notice or care that we were there as he slowly moved further away from the trail continuing his snacking. I wish I could be posting a picture of this, but the only picture I had the courage to take shows just a blurred black spot in the underbrush...my hands were shaking. I'd seen bears at Yellowstone before, but none so dangerously close.

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This park covers 800,000 acres. It's huge. And in all of this space there are at most 30 bears. 27 years Tom and Dooley have been coming without seeing a single bear, and I saw one on my first morning hike in the park. I was sure they'd be jealous, so before driving out of the Basin, I left them a note letting them know.

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Before heading out of the park, I did a couple more miles of hiking along the Lost Mine trail that was straight up to an overlook on the rim of the Basin. After being enclosed in the Basin for so long, getting to this view was well worth the struggle.

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The one thing that I think I should have added to the Big Bend visit would have been lazily rafting down Rio Grande. But that would have meant another day of camping out, and I really needed a shower. So tonight I am in Odessa , TX. That should be the last National Park for a while, and I am glad to be putting my hiking shoes away for a while. I don't have much of a plan for the next couple of days, so I will be seeing what I can see, eating what sounds good, and putting in some miles heading to the east coast.

Caves and Mountains - Day 4

Is it only Day 4? I feel like I’ve been doing this for 2 weeks already.

Wow, was I tired. I think I got 10 hours of quality sleep. The air mattress was superior to the cheap motel beds I had been in the previous two nights. And the rest was important because of all that I did today including nearly a third of a marathon of hiking.

I woke to an overcast dreary day, and was not at all disappointed because I was going underground for the day. Brantley Lake left me just 40 minutes from Carlsbad Caverns National Park and I was in the Visitor’s Center by 9:30 AM. The Visitors Center sits on top of a small mountain and overlooks an enormous expanse of lowlands. Millennia ago this expanse had been an ocean, and the Visitors Center sits on what was once the landfall of the ocean, the beachs. And below the Visitor Center, the Caverns, were once the coral reef on the oceans edge. When the ocean receded into the desert, the reef slowly became the amazing caverns.
I chose to do the two hikes that came free with the National Parks Pass I had bought for $80 at Saguaro NP.

The first hike was called the Natural Entrance hike, because we were entering through the same entrance that was first discovered in 1903. The 1.2 mile long hike would take my down 750 feet (75 stories) into the caves.

Very shortly after the entrance, I crossed what they call the “twilight zone” and I would last see natural light again for 3 hours. I was spelunking in what is considered by most to be the most beautiful caves in the world. I was immediately immersed in stalactites, stalagmites, columns, popcorn, water pools, draperies and a bunch of other cave features I can’t remember. It was jaw dropping.

The audio tour that I purchased talked of how most visitors walk around with a dumb-struck look on their face, and it was certainly true for me. Going down into the caves, every other step brought about something new and spectacular. And each new cave I entered seemed more unbelievably spectacular than the previous. Not cool or beautiful or even amazing, but none were less than spectacular.

I took a ton of pictures, but half the pictures didn’t come out because the caves were so big and dark that the flash was ineffective. Only some of the close-ups came out ok, but not nearly as good as they might have. This is a place that must be visited in person, and any description I could give won’t compare to the experience.

After the 75 story hike down, I was at the entrance to the Big Room, the second hike on my tour. This Big Room isn’t the biggest cave room in the world, it’s in Borneo, but this may be 3rd. I did another mile+ hike around just a portion of the Big Room. Unless I heard or remember wrong, the size of just this one cave was like 700 football fields. Not a single second in this “room” was anything but awesome. I spoke in hushed whispers with my fellow spelunkers in terms of stunned reverence, and even though I am an atheist, I was quite often using the word God.

The hike ended at the elevators, and I was whisked up the 750 feet to the surface. Nearly 3 miles of hiking and with every turn of the head I was seeing something different. In my ranking of best National Parks, this definitely makes the top 5. It’s not better than Yellowstone or Bryce, but it is certainly in the top 5.

I thought of hanging around til 6PM to see the exodous of more than 100,000 bats through the Natural Entrance as they set out for their nightly insect slaughter. But with the early start, I figured I could get on my way and perhaps have another scenic drive on my way to Big Bend Texas.

Here’s something I didn’t know before yesterday. Just 30 miles south of Carlsbad Caverns NP, and just over the Texas border, there is another National Park. Has anyone heard of Guadalupe Mountains NP? Neither had I.

I was told of it by the Ranger at Brantley Lake, and only briefly read up on it before nightfall. I saw there was an hour long scenic drive, and that was the plan that the Ranger and Guadalupe Mtns NP talked me out of. Cute as a button she was, when she told me, “The only real way to see the Park is to get out of your car and hike. And the best hike you can do in a half day is the McKittrick Canyon hike.” So under an overcast sky, I found myself at the start of a 5 mile (2.5 out, 2.5 back) hike to Pratt’s Lodge.

I might have been jaded by the spectacle of Carlsbad Caverns, or perhaps it was the lack of sunshine, it may have been the rain that started falling during the return trip, but this hike just didn’t do it for me. Sure it was beautiful, and had all the scenery, flora and fauna (see the deer photo) that I could hope for, but it wasn’t up to par with other hikes of this length I’ve done at National Parks. I think part of the problem was that it was a somewhat strenuous hike done over mostly rocky terrain that had me staring at my footing instead of taking in the scenery. I should have done the shorter scenic drive. My body would ache less right now.

I’m holed up in Van Horn, TX in another cheap hotel, and I expect to get another 10 hours of sleep tonight. I plan just a leisurely drive to Big Bend tomorrow. I will probably be driving a scenic route that I blogged about on the first Road Trip, so no need to discuss it again. It’ll be a day off, but hopefully not a rain out. Depending on the weather I may be camping out before exploring the park on Monday.

When the Embers Go Cold - Day 3

Out by 8, or was it 9AM, my first stop of the day was Wal Mart. I needed a case of water, and a fold-up canvas sitting chair. If things went right, I would be camping by nights end. And things went well.

The next stop was the White Sands National Monument, after a picturesque two hour drive. I had gone to the Sand Dunes NP in Colorado on the first trip, and this proved to be the junior version of that spectacle. There were no dunes that were too difficult for a fit person to ascend, but the beauty of the rippled sand and it’s uniqueness, made it no less worth a visit.

It sits in the middle of a missile bombing range and sometimes they have to close it so the government can take some big gun practice shooting. It’s not far from alien sighting Roswell. An atom bomb had been tested near by. I’m all aglow.

From there, I decided I was too close not to go to Roswell, and hope to find a tourist trap with an extremely cheesy T-shirt with a green head and some pithy yet cryptic words. Alas, it was not to be. I was half way to Roswell when I saw a sign for Apache Frybread. That is a “must pull over” signal to my tastebuds. Before I could get off the road, I was caught up to and moved to the side of the road by a copper. He swerved to continue past me to whatever stupid emergency he was so pushy about.

So I continued on to the frybread. I’ve written about it before. It’s fantastic and like a flat bread version of funnel cake. This was the real deal stuff as I was on an Apache reservation. The dozen cars in the parking lot in such a desolate area was additional proof that it would be great, and it was.

I got mine to go, headed back on the road to Roswell, and a few miles later ran into a lane of parked cars. People were walking forward, figuring out what was going on and word was passed back that a bus had flipped over. Multiple ambulances had passed (while I was getting frybread). And there were bodies in the road. I believed them, so I made a U-turn and forged a new route through the Apache Reservation land that made me miss Roswell all together.

Because of the detour I ended up at Brantley Lake NM State Park where I selected the “Primitive” camping location meant for those without an RV. The site I ended up at didn’t provide a thing besides a flat like tent area and a bunch of rocks in a circle for a fire pit. They didn’t sell fire wood, so I had to gather what I could from the nearby trees.

I sat a couple of feet from the lake’s edge, ate my Subway hoagie, and watched a superb sunset over the lake and distant mountains. The streaky cloud cover greatly improved the susnset, but unfortunately covered up most of the starry night I had hoped to enjoy. It being a day shy of the harvest full moon, didn’t help either. I was exhausted and on my blowup bed by 9PM.

It’s time to go to bed when you’ve run out of firewood, and even the embers have gone cold.