ROADTRIP 2006, WESTWARD: YOUNG MEN GOING WEST

Day 13 (6/19) Back on the road

After some commemorative 11 AM margaritas (no, not the driver), we bid farewell to Trey and once again headed west. Right after a trip to Cabela’s. Dave is a long-time customer, Andy neglected to bring a sleeping bag, and we were close to one of their megastores in Buda, TX. It’s sort of like L. L. Bean or REI, if either of those stores marketed more directly to hunters and fishermen and less to yuppies. As Andy and I were searching for a suitably inexpensive sleeping bag, a wall-mounted animatronic talking deer head began imploring us to try our hands at some laser-based target practice, in a goofy redneck accent. We obeyed, seeing few other options. Dave, meanwhile sought out a leather water skin, recalling fondly scenes from The Sun Also Rises in which men swigged wine from the same. Incidentally, The Sun also Rises was not written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In case you were wondering.

Dave also went in search of a hat. I had previously made the mistake of telling him something along the lines of, “If you buy a cowboy hat and you are not from cowboy country, then you are a poser.” This, of course, is only my own neurotic reason for not buying a cowboy hat, an object I secretly desire beyond all others. Nevertheless, Dave apparently took it to heart, and attempted to select a hat more befitting his station. He hummed and hawed, went back and forth, attempted to solicit opinions from me even though my mind was bereft of such delicacies. With the help of the youngest and most attractive sales representative within earshot, he finally settled on a floppy white number, which would later prove far better protection from the brutal desert sun than my paltry sweat-stained baseball cap.

The rest of the day was pure road, with little to report. We stopped in Sonora, TX, and camped by the Sonora Caverns.

Day 14 (6/20) Cave to Cave

Dave and I like caves. I have only ever been in two, but both times were magical. Crawling through tight, slimy little tunnels far underground with no light but a headlamp and little company save sleeping bats and crickets may not sound like your idea of a good time, for some of us, it’s a blast. Dave has been in many caves, and upon hearing the word “cave,” will very soon mention that he is a member of the National Speleogical Society and enquire after the state of your local grotto. Dave took me on my second caving trip, and as a result, we are Mud Brothers.

The appearance of caves in our journey was unexpected but we figured we’d at least see what kind of caving options were available at Sonora Caverns. Despite exceedingly friendly staff, $20 a head for a guided walk through a lit cave along a concrete path didn’t sound too appealing to those of us yearning to crawl in slime, and the tour wasn’t leaving for a few hours. Just as we were pulling out, the guy we’d been talking to ran out, flagged us down, and said he’d make a special exception for us and give us an abbreviated tour right now. Assuming this would be a 15 minute free dip into the caves, we bit. It was actually an hour-long full price tour, so I felt a little fleeced, but the guy was real nice, very knowledgeable, and the cave, though domesticated, was quite beautiful. Stalagmites, stalactites, weird twisting halactites, a cool layered structure called “bacon” for obvious reasons, and there was even a baby black-necked garter snake and a barking frog by the entrance.

Finally, we were back on the highway, through west Texas and the Chihuahuan Dessert, and up into New Mexico to Carlsbad Caverns. One cave deserved another. Carlsbad was magnificent, truly epic rock structures and massive rooms, but all that natural virtue was completely robbed by concessions to tourism. Concrete paths, backlighting, screaming children, rails, fences, ugh. Like King Kong in a cage. There is even an elevator from the visitor’s center down to the caves. These insults to one of the worlds most beautiful places were so bad that I honestly recommend you avoid it entirely. Unless you are aged, infirm, or claustrophobic, you’d do much better to find the nearest place you can go on a wild caving tour, where you put on some expendable clothes, pack your lunch and some water in a backpack, strap on a headlamp, and follow someone into a little hole in the ground. You’ll have a lot more fun. (Carlsbad actually did offer wild caving tours, but we weren’t there in time, so yeah, if you do go, do that first).

We stayed a little longer to observe the nightly emergence of the bats from the natural entrance to the cave, but even that was ruined by an obnoxious ranger blathering at the assembled crowd for half an hour as we waited. The emergence itself was lackluster in comparison with the photos, but it was neat all the same. Just not neat enough to scrub the memory of that awuful endless yammering from my bitter, fuming brain. I saw an Eastern collared lizard outside along a path, which also compensated a bit. We drove to Carlsbad proper, Andy and Dave took turns spilling margaritas all over our table, and spent the night in an RV park (with wireless internet!).