World's largest gypsum dunes - White Sands National Park - 275 square miles of white safari, situated in the Tularosa Basin, became this way today due to its unique ecology, dry climate and strong winds.
Water from the mountains (Organ Mountains?) flowed down, carrying dissolved minerals, and into the Tularosa plain. Over time, the minerals morphed into this beautiful snow desert.
The sand dunes are still constantly changing - pushing and pulling as they move inches every year. The sand and alkaline soil allows few enduring vegetations to survive, from cyanobacteria and fungi (the basic nutrient for many larger plants here), to grand cottonwood trees (their roots extend many feet below the sand to avoid erosion).
The moving dunes overwhelm most organisms, but these few plants that sustain here have acquire certain adaptations:
- Yucca plants keep their leaves above the sand but extend their roots far into the ground. They rapidly grow in a desperate race to keep their leaves above ground.
- Rosemary mint's growth rate surpasses the rate of moving dunes by using its leaves and roots to keep the sand together beneath them, thus providing a stable surface for other plants as well.
The sandy "beach" is mainly inhabited by nocturnal animals and insects:
- bleached earless lizards
- Apache pocket mice
- In general, these organisms have white pigments and since there is no water in this area (as you enter the park, there is a sign that says, "From this point on, there is no more water"), their moisture comes from their food alone. The dramatic temperature change in the desert allows the moisture to be retained.
Daytime creatures:
- Screaming tourists burning under the hot southwestern sun, soaking in the UVA and UVB with absolutely no place to take shade - a cancerous disaster waiting to happen years down the road.
One final note about this area: it was previously occupied by ancient Puebloan people and Mesclero Apache Indians.
En route to Carlsbad, we passed through Route 82 from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft, NM. Talk about isolation.
WELCOME to Carlsbad Cavern National Park!
In 1898, a young, brave soul called Jim White (NOT related to Charles White, who founded White's City just outside Carlsbad; they were just mutual friends) entered the caves via rope ladder and equipped with only one flashlight. At the age of 16, he became the first explorer of the caves (though not the first discoverer, but the only with the courage to enter into the deep dark unknown).
As we ride the elevator down 750 feet below surface, we begin to experience the wonder and thrill that was once felt by its initial explorers.
250 million years ago, New Mexico and its surrounding areas were submerged under water. It was the relaxing and breezy sea coast that today's vacationists long for.
While they were underwater, trilobites, insects and algae die and many of their exoskeletons deposit in the water, forming a reef.
Over time, the calcium bicarbonate within these deposits react with sulfuric acid (from hydrogen sulfide gas from deep oil wells and hydrothermal vents in the ocean) in a chemical equation that yields carbon dioxide, water and gypsum (same stuff as we saw in the White Sands).
About 60 million years ago, these deposits cracked and formed caves underneath the ground, which by now has dried and became the Chihuahua Desert as it's known today, along with beautiful structures such as these draperies and popcorn stalagmites.
Common formations observed in the caves:
- Stalactites - water containing calcium bicarb slowly drips from the ceiling, forming cones hanging downwards
- Stalagmites - same gypsum water rapidly drips, forming larger, inverted cones on the ground
- Popcorn stalagmites and stalactites - moisture from a calcium bicarb soaked air
- Draperies - large stalactites formed from slanted cave ceiling
- Columns - one scenario suggests that as shown in this picture, they can be formed when stalactites and stalagmites continuously grow and eventually join together
- Soda straws - millions of spiky sharp rockcicles hanging from the ceiling, reminiscent of an Indian Jones movie or a fantasy movie were protagonists are often changed as they run from falling needles.
These are the soda straws.
In general, the gypsum world is monotonously colored with mere white and beige as they their main palette. Yet, there are others:
- Orange comes from iron oxide
- Black comes from manganese
- Green can either come from corroding copper coin (many tourists can treat ground lake as a wishing well) or from green algae in the cave (the light inside is adjusted at a wavelength to promote algae growth)
Some interesting stories and people encountered in this short trip:
- Are Texans generally loud and obnoxious? That was our initial prejudice as we passed by a group of rambunctious southerners who ignored the sacred silence cherished by the cavern gods. Zack couldn't help but ask where they were from. Turned out they were from California and Utah but came into town to bury their father of 88 years in Texas. Certainly debunked our bias.
- While sitting outdoors waiting for the bat flight, we sat across from a couple. A woman, once was a kindergarten teacher who turned author and photographer after a brain surgery, who spat out "Dude" in between every other word, very typically Californian. The old man stuck to his heavy German-accented English. We shared stories and they told us of the beautiful and little known Prescott Valley.
- Casper was certainly attracting lots of attention - everyone was trying to guess her breed, and yet no one is quite right. I suppose people off the rez don't see a whole lot of rez dogs. A family stopped by to pat the dog. They were from Orange, TX, the last town on the eastern border of the state before entering Louisiana. We will certainly think of them as we pass through the area.
- Velvet Saloon, the only bar in town attached to the Velvet Garter, the only restaurant in town that closes at 8:30PM. As I order some food, I sat in the bar waiting for my pickup (Zack sped away to pitch the tent as the sun slowly dipped beneath the horizon). I had my first New Mexican beer, brewed in Roswell, not surprisingly, is called "Alien". Chatted up with the bartender, who's only been in the "city" for 7 weeks from Michigan. When asked how do you like it, she shrugged, "Not yet used to this..." "Isolation," I finished her sentence because I know exactly how she feels
Travelers tend to write travel blogs, on places they visit, experiences they have, things they do - wouldn't be cool to write a book just about the people one encounters on trips and in life? What are their stories? Why would someone abandoned metropolis and go into a small tourist attraction town in the middle of nowhere? What is the draw?
As Zack puts it, "The world is beautiful anywhere you go, you know, the wide open plains etc, but the people you meet complete and is the only thing that defines each place and experience."
Bat guano was first discovered as a great energy source between 1920 and 1933. The caves is home to several species of bats, namely the Mexican roosterhead bat, which comes out at night for the bat flight showing. They make several trips back and forth, eating several million pounds of mosquitoes every night.
They used to travel in the thousands, with human activity and global warming, their numbers have dwindled down to the hundred. We shook our heads as we watched the scattering creatures flapped away pathetically, in awe of what has become of perhaps one of the most amazing phenomenon in the southwest.
Human activity not only has put a toll on the local animal species, but also to the cave itself. In 2000, hanging formations broke and blocked the entrance way of the cave due to hundreds of tourists stomping through the day before. Shows that stalactites do break, long time ago it was mostly due to earthquakes, but since this land is now stable, the sole reason has become human intervention. What about all the lint and skin cells left by each individual. Add that to half a million tourists every year, and you have a very large mothball desecrating the magnificent structures that perhaps our precedents will not see the full effect.
We left Staten Island (Thank you Ben for your hospitality!) the following morning and headed for the coast. One thing I need to point out: people on the east coast drive like maniac - we almost got into an accident on the highway! The way we figure is this: In the south, speed limit is set very high at 70 or 80mph, so everyone is pretty much going more or less around the same speed. But here, the speed limit is only 60 - now you have people going at 45 mph and some at 80. Perhaps the solution is to raise speed limit, lift the ban on drugs and underage drinking, then everyone will be happy in a much more extreme and lawless world because we'd have our own sense of safety and law.
A stop in a quiet park in downtown Southampton. As we walk towards Main Street, people begin to dress just like the way we imagined they'd be dressed in the Hamptons.
Cooper Beach at the Southampton, 4th nicest beach in the country. Because we had a dog, the beach does not allow pets, we had to move far away from the main crowd. It was as if we owned the beach. The water was nothing compared with the water from Charleston. Definitely below 10 degrees! It was so cold that after staying in the water for more than 30 seconds, I thought we were going to die from hypothermia.
We lazily spent almost two hours sunbathing, only to rush to make it on time for our 4PM ferry reservation that will take us straight to Zack's home in Connecticut across the Long Island Sound. Somehow, the GPS told us that the shortest way is to take two additional ferries across two smaller sounds in order to get to the larger ferry. Little did we know that the path we chose took us an hour and half to travel 20 miles. The good news is that we changed the reservation, caught two more ferries (for someone who's never been on a ferry in a car, it was very exciting), and able to make it on time with 5 minutes to spare (last car on the ferry! If we missed this one, then we would have to wait until 7PM!). Whew! First thing, a cold beer to soothe our fatigue and thirst.
As the trip winds down - 15 states, 1 destination, and 3 surviving passengers who have managed not to tear each other's hair out (dog included).
