Critical Exponent

After leaving Carlsbad, we crossed back into Texas, driving through El Paso to get to Las Cruces for the night. The drive through the Guadalupe Mountains was simply breath-taking, and the national park there is well worth a return visit for a few days of backpacking.

Way back in the Permian period, over 230 million years ago, the part of Pangea around what is now Carlsbad, New Mexico, was the basin of the Delaware Sea. The accreting remains of sponges, algæ, and other organisms slowly formed a reef, which, after the sea dried up and much later geologic changes occurred, became part of the Guadalupe Mountains.

Water seeping through the eventually eroded reef formed sulfuric acid which carved the huge chambers that would become the Carlsbad Caverns. In subsequent times, the percolating ground water would dissolve a little limestone on its way down, and deposit calcite as it dripped to the chamber floors, leading to the spectacular speleothems that now decorate the National Park.

Although the smaller grotto-crawling tours were all booked, Knox and I went on the self-guided tour of the Big Room (the largest cavern chamber in the Western hemisphere; the first in the world is in Borneo) and on a group tour of the King’s Palace (a collection of smaller chambers).

Words cannot begin to do justice to the majestic beauty of the caverns. At times the elegant coolness of the stalactites reminded me of the Fortress of Solitude. Sometimes the stalagmites formed an eerie, other-worldly pageant. In more whimsical moments, the flowstone and draperies resembled thick cake batter dripping off a spatula.

See for yourself.

The Spanish missions in San Antonio, TX are gorgeous. We saw The Alamo, as well as Misión Concepción, Misión San José, and Misión Espada. It was interesting, though, that the information panels seemed to be very much pro-mission: they portrayed the Spanish as benevolent workers trying to improve the Indians, and gave short thrift to the suffering and collapse of the native populations.

On our way through the sprawl that is Houston, TX, we decided to take a detour to visit the Johnson Space Center. The official visitors center is called Space Center Houston and gets mixed reviews in my book.

On the plus side, it does have some original rockets, capsules, and a moon rock, though the gallery is somewhat hidden off the main exhibition space. There are two tours of the actual center. Knox and I took the Blue Tour, which goes to the Rocket Park (where you can walk around a real Saturn V rocket) and to the VIP gallery of the actual control room used in the Apollo 11 and 13 missions (among others). Interestingly, the control room currently in use for the International Space Station was just one floor below us. We did not go on the longer Red Tour, which takes visitors to the current space shuttle control room.

The big drawback of Space Center Houston is that it is structured very much like an amusement park. It’s got a playground for the littlest ones, some very basic science exhibits, and several video games that are supposed to be “simulators.”

Except for seeing the actual facility and the warehouse-sized Saturn V rocket, I’d say you’re better off going to the National Air and Space Museum.

New Orleans, LA, was extraordinary. I had been expecting it to be a small town full of drunken frat boys, à la Key West. Not at all! (Well, except for a stretch of Bourbon Street) Coming into NOLA after dark, I was struck by how much like a city it looked: high-rises, stores, people on the streets, aggresive drivers that put Bostonians to shame. We stayed in the French Quarter at the Hotel Provincial, which was as charming as you can imagine and extremely cheap. In fact, it is apparent that although the French Quarter is up and running as usual, tourism has not yet recovered from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. In other areas, of course, things have not yet gotten back to normal, and many of the stories we read in the morning paper indicated that the city is still processing the structural and social aftermath of the storm.

At any rate, perhaps my favorite part of our New Orleans stay was the ride on the Riverboat Natchez along a short stretch of the Mississippi. One morning after breakfast we decided to take a peek at the river when, all of a sudden, we heard Christmas carols carried on the loudly shrill notes of a calliope. Like moths to a flame, we joined the other tourists on a sailing that was both informative and moving: this was the very same river Mark Twain grew up on.

There are some more images of New Orleans here.

Biloxi, Mississippi, has not yet fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina. The revenue-producing casinos seem to be back up, but the rest of the waterfront remains largely devastated.

Here are some images from the Gulf coast, taken in Biloxi, Mississippi.

We had gotten to Mobile after nine, and we were a bit disappointed we did not get to see the river deltas in the daylight. It’s all good, we thought, since it will give us a leisure day of driving today getting to New Orleans. We checked into a hotel, found a greasy spoon for dinner, and then got a bit of a second wind, enough to go out and take some night pictures in the rain, tripod in hand.

Knox had gone ahead a block as I finished a shot I wanted to take. I caught up with him, when I heard it.

Meeow.

Meeow.

Meeow.

“What is that sound?” I wondered. I looked around.

Meeow.

Meeow.

I headed toward some shrubs lining a building.

Meeow.

Meeow.

There it was: a tiny, wet, cold kitten.

We took it out and looked around for its owner, or its mother. Nothing. The building looked to be offices and not residences. What could we do? It was shivering in my hands, crying disconsolately, its wet shafts of fur in clumps. We picked up some newspapers and wrapped it up to dry off. I held it in my arms as Knox went to the ATM and stopped at the placed we had eaten to order a bit of chicken breast so we could feed the poor creature. It seemed so sad, and the trembling was just heartbreaking. It wanted to jump away, though I found that by rocking it and walking back and forth it would hold still. “Silly cat,” I cooed. “You know you don’t like the rain. We’ll take you in tonight.” And that’s how it got its moniker, Silly.

Knox came with the food. We grabbed some extra newspapers and walked back the hotel, where we snuck it in. We dried it with the hair dryer and fed it (a little, we didn’t want it to get sick). It gobbled the food down in a less-than-genteel fashion. Now in much better spirits, it explored the room, charting the perimeter and trying to scale the furniture. We tried to leave it in the bathroom overnight, but it started meowing loudly again. Major separation anxiety. Knox lay down by the bathroom so it would stay there and go potty (that was our big fear: that it would soil the carpet or linens). That did not work, so we let it sleep on the bed with us. Feline 1, humans 0.

It woke us up early, frisky and hungry. I fed it some more, and we turned the light off as Knox took a bath. Finally, Silly went potty in a corner of the bathroom. All three of us went to bed then, and the kitty (and we!) slept peacefully for two hours more.

We debated whether to keep it or not. It sure would be romantic to start our Seattle life with a cat that we found on the road trip. But it would really alter the journey, it would be a big, long-term commitment, and, well, Knox is allergic to cats. We set off for the Humane Society and got lost. We asked directions at a service station, and, as an afterthought, asked whether any of the guys there could use a cat. One of them phoned his girlfriend and took us up on the offer.

Silly is now in a good home in Mobile. I’ll miss you, Silly.

We are in the heart of Dixie now!

We spent a night in Atlanta, where we visited my friend David. This was my second time there, and once again I was struck by how much it seemed like a city even though one really needs a car to get around.

Tuskegee, Alabama turned out to be a very dreary small town. Nothing much to see there, except for the Tuskegee Institute (now University). That, too, seemed rather desolate, but perhaps that was a result of the campus being empty due to the winter holidays. We saw the exhibits dedicated to George Washington Carver, educator, scientist, inventor—and (though the museum did not explicitly state it) gay man.

Our next stop was Montgomery, state capital of Alabama and important site in the Civil Rights movement. This city, too, was bleak; it didn’t look like a very pleasant to live. The Rosa Parks Museum, however, was very moving. The exhibit skillfully guided visitors through the critical events that began in December, 1955, by means of footage, interpretation, and reenactments.

Mobile, Alabama, at last seemed like a hospitable city. Some of the architecture was reminiscent of what I expect New Orleans to be like, and it appears to have enough shops and nightlife to make it lively.