In addition to two of my soccer games, I have missed several of Maya’s as a result of my recent travels.  This afternoon the CCHS Women’s Varsity was in action against Acton-Boxboro.  After a scoreless first half, Concord Carlisle gave up two avoidable goals in the second half.  Maya has mostly recovered from a foot injury that has nagged her but did not get any playing time in today’s match.  Photos from the first half of the game (rain and darkness infringed on the second half) can be found here.

One of my bucket list ambitions is to visit all of the US National Parks of which there are currently 59. My recent road trip added 8 more bringing my current total to 40. The National Park Service administers all manner of national sites including monuments (124), preserves (19), historical parks (50), historic sites (89), battlefield parks (4), military parks (9), battlefields (11), battlefield sites (1), memorials (30), recreation areas (18), seashores (10), lakeshores (4), rivers (5), reserves (3), parkways (10), historic and scenic trails (23), cemeteries (14), and heritage areas (49).  Of the ten maps/park brochures I collected on my “drive about” see if you can guess which two fall into a category other than national park.
 

Stopping only for fuel, food, and bio-breaks, I completed my 16-day, 7,417 mile “drive about” road trip today arriving at home just before midnight. In total, I visited 8 national parks and 2 national historical sites, traversed 18 states, and listened to 10 audio books. Spending time with Jeanine and Nicolai in Colorado was by far the highlight.  Although I am momentarily exhausted from today’s 15-hour dive, I am already starting to think about my next road trip.

After visiting Carlsbad Caverns earlier in the week, the Mammoth Cave (both a National Park and a World Heritage Site) does not initially seem quite as impressive.  It contains a small fraction of the speleothems which are to be found in the former.  What is amazing is the sheer scale of the cave.  With 405 miles of surveyed passageways Mammoth Cave is by far the world’s longest known cave system, over twice as long as the second-longest cave system, Mexico’s Sac Actun underwater cave, a portion of which Kyle and I explored during his coming of age adventure.

In my quest to one day visit all 59 national parks I have now reached the two thirds mark and consider myself qualified to say that the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas does not really meet the standard of a National Park.  It should properly be designated as a National Historical Park, akin to the Minute Man National Historical Park in my home town of Concord.  The tiny natural portion of the “park” is largely unremarkable while the hot springs have been capped and plumbed into a common feed system for the entire downtown area Bathhouse Row. Fordyce Bathhouse serves as the park’s Visitor’s Center and is really more of a museum.

There are a very small number of places where you can still see the hot springs and I am afraid this park will be near or at the bottom of my list.

There is very little to see between Midland, Texas, where I spent last night, and the Choctaw Nation town of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, my destination for the evening.  The 8 hour drive is sprinkled with windmill farms and oil fields and damn little else.  I can not really say that my first visit to the Sooner state was worth the extra mileage but it does lift my visited state tally to 47.

Big Bend National Park, located in Texas, has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States. Covering 801,163 acres, it contains more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds (including the above pictured Peregrine Falcon ), 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals. When I entered the park early in the morning, the sky was totally clear.  By the time I arrived in lovely Chisos Basin, I was literally racing to stay ahead of a rapidly advancing fog bank that quickly inundated and totally obscured the mountains.

With nothing left visible to photograph in the mountains, I made my way to the Santa Elena Canyon.

Here the Rio Grande has carved through the mountains to create a very narrow and steep-walled canyon.  The hike in is generally easy except for the necessary waist-deep water crossing of  Terlingua Creek.

On the return leg of the hike, I extended the creek crossing to include a brief visit to Mexico.  The slow moving Rio Grande, pictured below is only about 30 feet wide at the bend and no deeper than 3 feet.  If Donald Trump gets to build his wall, this park will forever be spoiled and such an impromptu international excursion will no longer be possible.  I spent about 10 minutes on Mexican soil before crossing back to the US and continuing on to Rio Grande Village at the opposite end of the park.

 

The Carlsbad Caverns National Park makes my short list of favorite national parks.  I arrived just as the park was opening and spent the next 5 hours underground.  What a treasure trove! The fact that tripods and flashlights are permitted allowed me to get some nice photographs in the “Big Room.” Many of the speleothems are already illuminated for the visual enjoyment of tourists but not in a fashion that lends to nice photographs. With long exposures and using my flashlight to “paint with light,” I was able to create many images that I am very pleased with.

Saguaro National Park is located in southern Arizona on the outskirts of Tucson established to protect its namesake—the giant saguaro cactus. Many other kinds of cactus, including barrel, cholla, and prickly pear, are abundant in the park.

The Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located 6 hours away  in West Texas and contains Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet. Located east of El Paso, it also contains El Capitan, long used as a landmark by people traveling along the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line. I arrived just in time for evening light but not early enough to complete a planned hike into McKittrick Canyon. Instead I pushed on to Midland, Texas where, motivated by the desire (and need) for a hot shower, I stayed in a motel for the evening.

The Painted Desert was aptly named by explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540. Now a part of the Petrified Forest National Park it is a photographer’s dream.  I have often admired this area from 30,000 feet while flying over and was thrilled to have a closer look today.

Famous US Route 66 used to traverse the park and is now commemorated with the exhibit shown below. At many sites within the park, petroglyphs have been scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on rock surfaces, often on a patina known as desert varnish. Most of the petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old.

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago.  Despite looking so natural, these tree sections are now composed exclusively of rock-hard minerals. As nightfall approached, I found myself passing Biosphere 2, the largest closed ecological system ever created. Used only twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment, both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists, and management issues. I was unable to gain access beyond the security gate and had to settle for sleeping in an adjacent cow pasture for the evening.

After dropping Jeanine off for her pre-dawn return flight to Boston, I drove 8 hours to the Chaco Cultural National Monument (click on image for a more detailed view) which hosts the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The scale, architecture and precision of construction are awe inspiring.  Along the drive I was treated to a full double rainbow, an old fashioned steam powered train, antique Rolls Royce, and mountains full of aspens in bloom.

Once in the park, I completed a 5-mile hike to the top of the escarpment overlooking the ruins for a bird’s eye view. Vertical access was by way of a narrow slot canyon “stairway.”

Wildlife encounters for the day included many elk and countless ravens.

Perfectly timed to my departure from Chaco Canyon, the setting sun turned the red rocks to gold.

Nicolai and I started the day by shopping for a pair of proper boots which he needed prior to the onset of winter.  We then joined Jeanine who had secured us a table at a very popular breakfast cafe where we enjoyed a delightful meal. We bid Nico farewell before returning to our hotel for a much needed nap. Fully rested we walked to the nearby Manitou Cliff Dwellings and Museum. These Anasazi ruins were originally located in McElmo Canyon, in the southwest corner of Colorado near Mesa Verde and Dolores. The process of relocating them began in 1904 and was completed in 1907 when the preserve was opened to the public.

Jeanine used her superior restaurant sniffing skills to identify the Jerusalem Cafe as our destination for dinner.  The meal was the best of our vacation and we wrapped up the evening with a stroll through the quaint town of Manitou Springs.

Jeanine and I met Brady Grainger (mother of Nico’s roommate) for coffee and breakfast.  We were eventually joined by her son (Tom) and daughter (Aliza) both at Colorado College as well as Nicolai who had spent the night on campus.  Jeanine and I also made a brief stop to deliver a care package to Karuna (Nico’s girlfriend and CC freshman) who was not feeling well enough to join us for breakfast. We then drove up to the Catamount Center to see where Nicolai was living and learn more about the program.  The setting on two lakes at the base of Pike’s Peak is nothing short of stunning.

Nicolai lives in a bio-thermally heated high tech structure high on campus which stands in stark contrast to all other buildings which are very rustic.

Nicolai is studying here as part of the Teaching and Research in Environmental Education (TREE) program, a 16-week, residential semester program that mirrors the traditional study abroad experience. The TREE Semester is specifically designed for undergraduate students interested in exploring both environmental and educational fields. Nicolai will spend over a hundred hours teaching a group of  K-12 students while simultaneously cultivating his own conceptions of environmental stewardship and researching his students’ development.

Visiting parents were treated to astudent-ledd tour of the campus and later Nico, his friend, Cameron, and I hiked to the location where he did his solo vision quest returning to base just as the Grainger family arrived.

A subsequent hike was aborted due to the onset of a brief hail storm. The entire group had dinner together at a Mexican restaurant in Woodland Park.  I joined the group later after returning to the Catamount Center to take advantage of the post storm evening light.  I lucked upon a herd of elk that were perfectly positioned at the top of a ridge and am very happy with the resulting images.

Rain last night persisting into the morning informed our decision to drive into Estes Park for breakfast rather than trying to cook at our camp site in the drizzle.  When we returned to the RMNP we encountered a small herd of grazing elk. The light was very nice and I focused on the largest and smallest of the group.

We exited the park by way of the Trail Ridge Road which offered great overlooks until our increasing altitude took us into the dense clouds.

As we descended on the other side of the mountains, we paused for a short hike to Lake Irene. The unplanned stop was motivated by the lakes’s name, the same as one of Jeanine’s close friends.

The main reason we are in Colorado is to visit with Nicolai who is studying at the Catamount Center for Environmental Science & Education located in Woodland Park.  We elected to stay in Manitou Springs, half way between the Colorado College campus and the Catamount Center to facilitate visits to both. Nicolai drove down to join us for dinner after his last class of the day. It was wonderful to see him and to learn about his program of study.  It was clear to us that he is thriving in this environment and is passionate about the work.  Little more that a parent could wish for.