22.) Hiking Through the Hourglass to Other Planets......And Filler....

After my stay I exchange numbers with Matt, thank him endlessly, and promise to keep in touch.  He has the same don’t-mention-it, no-big-deal sort of attitude as usual as I point the jeep west and head deeper into New Mexico.  When I next stop I find myself at White Sands National Monument.  The largest collection of gypsum dunes in the world.  With the water table only a few feet below the surface, and gypsums inability to store heat I’m able to hike nearly three miles completely barefoot through hourglass sand. Soft and fine as powder.  

  I wander over one dune and I’m immediately on another planet.  It's fucking Tatooine! White sand tsunamis in every direction, very disorienting.  If not for the wooden posts that mark the trails I would be hopelessly lost already. When I reach the top of the next dune the view is tough to beat.  Rolling waves of sand spill out to mountains on the horizon while lazy clouds halfheartedly stretch to their breaking point across a sky of dollhouse blue.  Clusters of weeds and desert grasses that manage to cling to the shifting sands are the only disturbance in the sea of white. While it may not be a destination in itself, White Sands National monument is worth a stop along the way.  At the very least it’s a curious and beautiful landscape in which to stretch your legs after long hours on the road and the kids will love renting a sled from the gift shop and hurling themselves down the dunes like a coat of freshly fallen powder…..well, kids and 30 something drifters who pester them until they're given a turn will love it equally…..

21.) Everybody's Got Their Thing......Laundry Matt Hospitality.......Previous Occupations....

My entire thought process on coming to Roswell was “Roswell? Aliens….Cool!”.  I never gave much thought to what I would actually do when I got here so when I stumble upon the visitors center I dip into the parking lot. Visitor centers are usually good for finding out the goings on around town, things to see, places to go. Plus this one has the coolest mailbox I’ve ever seen. I’m inside for all of two seconds because the first thing I see is a sign that says UFO Museum 3 blocks with an arrow.  I’m there for the rest of the day.   

Aliens creep me the fuck out.  Everybody’s got their thing; wether it be ghosts, or demons, or birds in an elevator.  Everybody’s got at least one thing.  That one thing that gives you the heebie-est of jeebies.  So much so that you won’t discuss it out loud because just thinking about it starts that shiver in your spine   Aliens are my thing.  I think it’s because aliens are probably real.  Out of all the millions of galaxies that we know are out there now, it’d be weirder if aliens didn’t exist.  There’s just too much room out there for earth to be the only place in all the infinite cosmos to have self aware beings living on it. Aliens are also scary because they can just BE in your room all of a sudden.  You can lock your doors and barricade yourself inside but aliens don’t give a shit.  They’re just in there.  Man, you ever seen The 4th Kind?……Aww fuck dude! One minute you’re sleeping and the next BAM! Aliens all up in your bedside.  And they’ll probably have that crazy space technology that paralyzes you to your bed so you can’t run away. They always have that.  

 Ever read a book called “Communion”? Where Whitley Strieber claims that aliens have been visiting him repeatedly throughout his entire life.  He never tells his son about these visits but one day his son describes the same exact aliens the author describes.  Down to odd little details like the smaller ones in blue jumpsuits are the grunts, the workers; while the taller slender ones seem to have more authority. The kid says he sees them in his sleep, or something like that.  Yeah….creep me the fuck out.  So thats why I go to the UFO museum.  

 A giant timeline of the Roswell Incident runs the length of the museum on the right side.  The who, what, when, sort of thing with testimonials from different perspectives and the like.  Claims of evidence being stolen or destroyed or replaced with parts of a weather ballon.  It really is pretty engrossing and I could spend more time perusing the exhibits but the place is closing.  It’s almost 6 so I head back to the quick lube to see if Matt will make good on his offer to put me up for the night.

     I park near the back door and when Matt comes out and see me he yells “I just can’t get rid of ya huh!?”  he laughs outlandishly to show he’s joking.  “Just give me 10 mins to close up shop.”  After a bit he locks the back door and hops in the jeep with me.  “Ya hungry?” he asks by way of greeting. I’m kinda hungry but I’m trying to stretch every dollar and groceries are cheaper than restaurants. I open my mouth to answer and Matt interrupts, “If we can stop at the grocery store for beer and the Asia place for food it’s all on me.” Sounds like I’m coming out on top of that deal so I quickly agree and we proceed to a Chinese buffet where we each load up a styrofoam clam shell to capacity.  Back at Matt’s house I thank him profusely for the lodging and the food while I'm stuffing my face full of beef and broccoli.  He just waves his hand in that same  ‘don’t mention it’ kind of gesture and continues talking.  And boy is he a talker.  Loud and boisterous and a million miles an hour.  Firing off stories like a fully automatic weapon one after another.  

     He was born in Califorina, grew up in Arizona and now owns a house in Oregon.  He came to Roswell in an attempt to help a chronic fuck-up of a brother.  I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t get all the details but it sounded like drugs got hold of his brother and just wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard Matt tried to help. The quick lube was supposed to be something they could do together, and keep his brother out of trouble but he stopped showing up soon after they opened the doors.  He no longer even knows where his brother is.  This story is told in the tone of someone who is deeply saddened by the situation but has been numbed to it. As if it occurred so often over the years, it's become the norm.  I try to relate.  It’s true that time heals all wounds but the serious ones leave scars that can last for years…..or lifetimes, unnoticed by a flippant glance but still a part of who you are….always.

Matt doesn’t give me time to feel sorry for him. He’s already told another story and is halfway through a third.  The house we’re in belongs to a friend of his, a judge.  Apparently the judge and his wife raised a family here and when the wife died of cancer the judge wanted nothing to do with the house. I look around and notice there are no family pictures on the walls, just rectangle dust shadows where something used to hang. Just empty space on desktop and mantlepiece. Memories are the enemy now, even the good ones. So the judge lets Matt stay here just so the place doesn't get broken into. That explains all the available bedrooms and hastily packed boxes. The somber mood never fully settles in the room because Matt’s already giving me his list of past employment and various adventures he's had with each. Moving cars and heavy equipment back and forth across the country, physical therapy for a quadriplegic, caring for 98 monkeys, small business owner. He’s got the quick lube/carwash now but he used to own a laundromat. (Back then people would call him Laundry Matt. Ha! I find it much more humorous than he does.)  At this point he’s been talking non stop for over an hour while we slowly get drunker on beer he bought us along with the Chinese food but I’ve got to stop him here.  “Whoa, whoa,” I interrupt “Ok, when you say ‘monkeys’ you mean..?”  He stick out his hand, palm down as if it indicate the height of a toddler, looks me in the eye and with a single nod just replies “Primates.”

“98 of them!?” He stops momentarily and makes a thinking face.

“I think it was 94 of them actually.”  I’m not sure why but for me, this slight correction make the story infinitely more believable.  “Monkeys are mean dude! Sometimes we couldn’t control them so the only thing we could do is spray with the hose to get them to back off or stop humping things.”

“Monkeys don’t like to be sprayed with water huh?” I ask.

“Nope….neither do people” he says with a shrug. I laugh, because it’s a good point.  Think about how anyone would react if you just started spraying them with a hose. They would lose their minds. Probably they’d run away, but they'd definitely stop whatever it was they were doing. Monkeys are no different.  

When one story ends he moves seamlessly into another.  It’s difficult to follow but the enthusiasm with which he speaks is ruthlessly entertaining. He’s onto caring for ‘Sharon’ a quadriplegic woman now, illustrating his responsibilities with off color jokes and politically incorrect comments which happen to be my favorite kind of jokes and the best type of comments. In one incident he’s invited some of his friends over to Sharon’s house and they’re being noticeably quiet and seem uncomfortable. By way of reassurance Matt tells them “Don’t worry guys! It’s not she’s gonna come peeking around the corner, sticking her head in here or anything! She’s not gonna sneak up on us…..cause she can’t! Followed by uproarious laughter.  “I know where she is…..cause it’s right where I left her!” I laugh harder than is socially acceptable, shake my head and choke out “that’s awful,” as I make little head way on reigning in my giggling.

“How does a person go from monkey handler to physical therapist?” I ask perplexed.

“They we’re HER monkeys.”

“WHAT?! The paralyzed woman had nearly 100 monkeys!?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing but at the same time it’s one of those stories thats so crazy it has to be true.  Think about it.  What’s more crazy? A guy having a job taking care of 94 monkeys that belong to a quadriplegic woman who he also takes care of, OR a guy making that story up out of thin air and then saying it…..out loud…to another person. The second guy is clearly a sociopath right? Like the scary, wear your skin like a an overcoat kind of sociopath.  Matt seems good natured and harmless and I’m still convinced that his stories were true, or at the very least based in reality.  

My personal favorite is the one where Matt leaves Sharon a plate with a sandwich on it for lunch. Apparently she can move her arms enough to feed herself but not much else.  He leaves her room to go handle some monkey business…(HA!) When he returns the plate is over turned on the floor, the sandwich having been stolen by a rouge monkey who now has each of Sharon’s ears clenched firmly in each of it’s tiny monkey fists. A monkey foot on each of her shoulders on either side of her head, fully aroused and vigorously face fucking this poor paralyzed woman who's not strong enough to fight off a monkey or get up and run away.  Matt spit this story out between fits of uncontrollable laughter and ended it by shooting the offending primate with a squirt gun, looking at Sharon’s mortified face and asking, “So.....How was lunch?” 

“Was this woman qualified or trained in any way to have monkeys or anything like that?” I ask.

“Fuck no!” he fires back.  “She was a junkie whore. She was paralyzed in a car accident while she was blowing a trucker!  One day she told me she wanted a baby and I thought fuck,   can’t help you there,” implying that he refused to have sex with a paralyzed woman whose nether regions he already cleans on the regular.  Her desire for a baby is what led to the acquisition of one single monkey which she fell in love with and led to all the others.     

Reguardless of the level of truth present in these tales they were painfully entertaining. Matt is a born story teller and simply a decent human being.  I end up staying with him for 4 days, doing laundry, watching movies, and sleeping in an actual bed. He buys Royal Crown and grills filet mignon that he doesn't even eat.  We get drunk and trade stories everyday when he gets home from work.  Some highlights from these whiskey soaked conversations include one liners like “chicken lips and butt pork”, and “She wasn't much to look at but she could suck start a Harley.”

20.) Mediocrity at the State Line.....Inside the Desert....Drifting and Hygiene.....

I thought crossing the state line into New Mexico and out of Texas would be miraculous.  Another lame metaphor for leaving all the garbage behind, beginning anew.  Truth is, I almost missed the whole damn thing.  I was right, there was no line, no apparent change in color or even landscape. It was really a non event.  Just a sign in the desert by the side of a desolate highway and I'm disappointed in the mediocrity.  Then it starts to hit me. Your out, you never have to go back there.  Out for good.  This trip is legitimate now. crossing state lines…its for real.  And New Mexico! Never been here before. Gaing steam. I’m excited again.

 

      I spend the day at Carlsbad Caverns just over the state line.  You hear about them and you’re kinda just like.... yeah big cave…cool....whatever.  But to actually see them, to explore INSIDE the desert is remarkable.  I hiked nearly two full miles under ground in a constant 56 degrees  through stadium sized caverns with vaulted dome ceilings. I’m in awe of the enormity of this place.  Theres a food court inside this cave……Amazement followed shortly by a heavy depression and the sound of my forehead falling into the palm of my hand.....The exploitation is incredible. The simple volume of this place....the amount of space it takes up.....is ridiculous... and I'm staring at the golden arches....*sigh* The only thing i can do to make myself feel better is order a 20 piece McNugget (c) meal and call it a day.  I shake my head in disbelief.....When I hear the phrase "super size it?"...I instinctively start to nod and proceed to the second window.....      

Back above ground I wander around the little museum and learn that 100,000 tons of guano, basically bat shit…was mined out of the caves over the years.  Over 40 feet deep in places. I assume it was used for fuel of some kind but I’m not sure.  Outside I follow the “Old Guano Road Trail” to a shaft that was dug to make guano extraction much easier.  It’s all fenced off and it’s  basically just a hole in the ground but you can see all the way back into the caverns. The ground I’m standing on now seems less reliable. I look out at the expanse of nothingness leading back into Texas and nod in agreement. I point the jeep away from it and toward Roswell, New Mexico.  
 The jeep could use a cleaning and an oil change as I pull into Roswell.  It looks like any other moderately sized dessert town except for the abundance of ufo and alien paraphernalia everywhere.  They really run with it, even the Mcdonalds is shaped like a ufo.  I find a quick lube oil change place with a car wash attached.  Three weeks worth of desert has attached itself to the jeep in a thick film and a wash is just the refresher it needs.  I could use a refresher myself.  The desert has attached itself to me as well.  I saw a few campgrounds on my way into town, surely one of those has some shower facilities I could use.  As he rings me up, I ask the man behind the counter if he knows a place in town where I could have a shower.  He’s a tea kettle boiling on the stovetop.  Positively charged and brimming with energy.  Never coming to a complete stop, he seems to be running the entire operation by himself.  A dusty baseball cap sits atop his bald head, five o'clock shadow out in full force despite it being early afternoon.


“Shower huh?!” His volume matches his energy.  He makes that face people make when they mentally picturing the days to-do list, his index finger unconsciously ticking off items in the air.  “Gimmie…..uuuhhhhhhhh, 10 minuets.  Wait right here” and he scurries out the back door.  I see him through the big picture windows in the front of the office, trot across the parking lot and into the garage where my oil was changed. A few minuets later he trots back in, grabs some keys off a hook behind the counter, and point to a white pick up truck outside.  “I gotta drop that truck off down the street. Just follow me and I’ll take you to a shower you can use” and he’s out the door before I can respond. I jump in the jeep and whip onto the road behind him figuring he’s leading me to one of the campgrounds but we come to a stop in a driveway.  He parks the truck and kills the engine. He's across the driveway, and in my jeep’s passenger seat before I know it and already talking.  “That truck stays here.  You can shower at my house and then give me a lift back to the garage.”
“Are you fuckin serious?! That’s awesome, thanks man!”  I can’t believe it and I’m slightly weirded out by the offer but this trip is about saying yes and I’m getting pretty ripe at this point.  
“Don’t worry about it, it fuckin sucks not having a shower…Matt” he says, extending his hand and directing me through a neighborhood and into the driveway of a beautiful, mansion-like home.  Into the house, through a large den with a big screen TV in the front and a bar in the back.  Boxes litter the bar top while more are congregated in a corner and in front of the TV.  Not the nice packed up and sealed moving type boxes;  most are open on the top filled with a mishmash of unrelated clutter that seems to have been just tossed in without much thought.  It’s apparent that this room hasn't been used in some time.  I follow Matt across another living room with a leather sofa and a matching recliner.  Built into the center of the opposite wall is a desk flanked on either side by overflowing bookshelves.  No time to gawk though, Matt is moving fast. Around a corner and up stairs into a bedroom. Sliding Glass doors look out onto a small balcony with a spiral staircase leading down into the backyard. A huge patio, complete with in-ground pool and hot tub takes up most of the space. Across the pool and up against the fence is a professional grade propane barbecue with marble counter tops on either side.  “Showers in here.”  I’m startled out of a daydream about me, steaks, and that barbecue when Matt says it.  
“Right!” I say, shaking my head back to the present, “Sweet…”  I turn the corner into the bathroom and the shower is one of those glass room deals with multiple shower heads.  Marble floors and ornate fixtures on the vanity. “Whoa.”
“Go ahead and wash yourself. Ima go make a sandwich then you can drive me back to the shop,” is all Matt says as he throws a towel at me.  By the time I catch it I already hear him clomping down the stairs.  
After three weeks of camping in the desert a shower is magical.  Even more so when taken in a bathroom resembling that of a hedonistic glutton king.  I wish I could have spent days in there, but Matt was cool enough to let me use the thing so I didn’t want to keep him waiting if he had to get back to work.  I compliment his house and thank him profusely as I drop him back at his shop.  “No sweat dude,” he says waving his hand in a don’t-mention-it gesture. After he asks where I’m staying and I admit that I haven't really thought about it yet, probably sleep in the car at Wal-mart, he says “Come back at 6 when I get out.  I got 4 fuckin beds in that place that no one’s using, you can have a whole room to yourself.” 

“Kick ass dude! Thanks! I just might take you up on that” but he’s already gone.

19.) Other Lives....Co-Pilots...."The Most Beautiful Place In Texas"....

     It never fails does it? After you have a stellar day complete with fresh air, accomplishment, and a vague sense of pride something happens to knock you back to earth.  My fall was delivered in the form of flashing red and blue lights in my rearview.  The second I saw them my eyes dropped to the speedometer but I knew I was speeding before they even got there.  At this same moment I became conscious of the fact that I was traveling downhill which would only aid me in breaking the posted speed limit.  *sigh* “Shit..” quietly to myself, but still out loud and pull over.

The officer walks to the passenger side window so he isn’t standing in the middle of the highway while we converse.  The first thing I notice is that he’s probably the most handsome man in history. Like, distractingly so.  I’ll admit that it’s a weird thing for me to notice but I maintain that this man was operating at a level of handsome so out of the realm that this would have been the first thing ANYONE would notice about him.  Even the super manly, sleeveless flannel kinda lesbians would have noticed and been momentarily thrown by it. Given each other a little nod and a raise of the eyebrows....humph, good looking dude.
  He proceeds to tell me that I was speeding and I admit that yes, it got away from me a little coming down that hill there.  He then informs me that my passenger side tail light is out.  What the fuck?! I just replaced it! Wait, no, I just replaced the driver side one….now the other ones out? Is that a weird coincidence or does that sort of make sense? Both of them going out around the same time. It doesn't matter really, and I prepare myself for a ticket after venting my frustrations with taillight replacement to the officer.  To my surprise he lets me off with a warning and a promise to fix the light as soon as humanly possible.  I believe I’ve mentioned this before but I had been pulled over a month or so previously when the other taillight had gone out.  This was in Houston, Texas before I left on my trip.  THAT officer was waiting in a parking lot across the street from a bar where I played darts.  When I left he had followed me more than halfway home and finally he pulled me over.  I had go through a whole field sobriety test. The line walking, the nose touching, the one foot standing.  I passed them all and afterwards the officer hands me a ticket for 130 dollars, says your driver side taillight is out and walks away.  The moral of the story is that cops in Houston are way more douchey than border patrol officers in the middle of the west Texas desert.  

The closest congregation of people is the liberally named Dell “City”, population 413 or so says the  green, sun faded sign on the outskirts of town.  Just a few low buildings on an indiscriminate stretch of highway.  A school, a post office, a gas station….that's Dell City.  The kids probably dream of escaping; and for a moment I wonder where they go in their dreams. Theres nothing visible in any direction, just desert and mountains; so I think,  "Wherever they go, it’s a long way off". I receive a package from, and send a postcard to, another life.  A life that’s not too distant chronologically but still seems a million miles away. In the package I get some new cd’s which is perfect, (all my cd’s are buried somewhere in the bowls of the jeep) and a small stuffed penguin wearing a flower lei. He is quickly dubbed Aloha Penguin. His friends call him A.P. And he becomes my co-pilot from here on out. He’s a fine soldier and he never abandons his post. 

Luckily, the Dell City gas station is also a NAPA so I’m able to find a spare bulb for my taillight inside and replace the old one right in the parking lot outside. You don’t realize how often a problem can be solved by a set of needle nose pliers or a socket wrench.  A simple tool box is one of life’s essentials.  With new lights on the outside and new music on the inside I point the jeep back towards the park and spend the next few days on the trails. 

    
      I follow a wash into a valley and over boulders to Devil’s Hall.  Again with the massive power of water. The hall itself is a narrow passage created by water eating its way through the soft rock layers. Each layer is visible making the canyon walls resemble miniature staircases. It’s an attractive place despite the name; made even more welcoming by the absence of people.  I haven’t seen one other person on this entire hike.  The solitude is relaxing. I lay back on a rock to sun myself and simply enjoy. 

 

Later I hike into Mcklintick Canyon all the way to Pratt Cabin.  Mr. Pratt called this canyon “the most beautiful spot in Texas” and it’s easy to see why. Even now, in mid March while most foliage is still dead or dormant and with the area slowly recovering from a major flood years ago it’s still gorgeous.  Peeking through the spaces between the trees are ridges climbing upward on both sides and the sky a perfect blue. In full bloom it must be just incredible. The thought solidifies itself as a deer bounds along the edge of the secluded clearing and into the forest beyond.  I admire the cabin and a few out buildings all made entirely of stone, even the roof.  I cup my hands around my face to peer in through the windows. It’s simple and secluded and seems like a wonderful place to settle down.  I do just that, in a chair on the front porch with a book.  We forget how pleasant it can be to sit in a pretty place and just be. It’s magic.  

I’m deeply entranced in my book when a flying, buzzing insect of some type slams full speed into the pages just inches from my face. The spell is broken and I look around the canyon glad that no ones around to witness how high I jumped. On the hike back my mind wanders. The trip is beginning to congeal, to become an actual thing with a tone and personality.  The further I go the more convinced I become that this trip was the EXACT right thing to do. I’ve hiked over 40 miles now and I’m feeling better physically, I already seem to have more energy.  It’s early to bed  and rising with the sun and I’m enjoying all of it. Soon I’ll cross my first state line and be finished with Texas for good. 

18.) The Tip Top of Texas.....Aortic Dissections Can Suck It.....

I get up early to make sure I have enough daylight. Don’t wanna be stuck up there in the dark. From the trailhead I can see several different peaks. I’m not sure which one my trail leads to, but none of them are close.  I’m sick of worrying about this hike and just plow ahead into the foothills of the Guadeloupe Mountains.

     After a half mile up the gravelly slope I’m already exhausted.  “Slow and steady” I think to myself and continue after a short rest.  The trail evolves from gravel to rocks and eventually to boulders but always climbing….always. I tire and rest often.  The trail clings to the edges of the mountain. I can touch a sheer rock face with my right hand and hang my left out over a growing abyss the path being only 3 or 4 feet wide in some places.

     I’m out of breath for nearly the entire hike never sure if i’m going to make it to the top. I push myself up along the switchbacks eventually climbing up out of sparse grassland and into a pine forest where snow still hides in the shadows.  Then I’m above the tree line on rocky wind scoured ridges.  The trail is clearly marked but I still come across a couple who has taken a wrong turn somewhere, obviously I’m still in Texas. Pressing forward I leave them behind and hoist myself to the top of another ridge where finally I see the metal pyramid marking the peak, 8,749 feet. 

     

     A feeling I can’t quite place rushes over me. It’s that tingle behind your eyes and in your sinuses, that ‘I need to sneeze 
but can’t’ sort of feeling.  Is it pride? Am I proud of myself?  I can’t be sure, I’m not familiar with the feeling but I DID just accomplish something I wasn’t sure I could do. I DID just climb a fucking mountain.  There were times in Texas when it was questionable if I would ever wake up again, if I would ever walk again, if I would have full use of my limbs again, and today I climbed a fucking mountain! Aortic dissections can suck it because I’m on the tip top of Texas right now and I feel unstoppable.  It’s a good feeling and I soak in as much of it as I can along with the incredible 360 degree views.  I’m above everything looking down even on El Capitan. I can see forever, my line of sight obstructed only by the curvature of the earth.  I take in the view from every possible direction and after a rest and a snack I head back down.

     Maybe I’m flying high from making it to the top or finding my third wind or something but down seems infinitely easier than up. You can’t even compare the two.  You do use different muscles though, and by the time I make it back to the trailhead all of me is sore.  It took me 4 hours to go up and 2.5 to come down.  Most of the rangers said this hike would take 6-8 hours and I'm happy to be towards the lower end of the spectrum.  All and all it was a pretty successful day and a sense of accomplishment is the best lullaby there is.

17.) The Shit Gets Really Close to the Fan......Close Encounters.....Climbing Out....

The next morning takes me around the Smith Spring loop trail.  The trail named for the spring and the spring named for the family who discovered it and settled the area.  The 3 mile trail leads me past three separate springs and a restored Smith homestead. Water.... I’ve already seen signs of its awesome destructive power.  Up rooted trees and boulders rubbed smooth.  But heres another. Giver of life, the source of everything. It really is incredible.  

After my hike I cruise down the highway a bit to find a place to make lunch.  The first sign I pass is for the charmingly named Rattlesnake Springs and Slaughter Canyon picnic area.  I take the exit while thinking someone in the marketing department should have gotten fired when they came up with that one.  I can see right away that this road leads nowhere for miles but I’m enjoying the wide openness of my surroundings too much to have any real reservations.  I press further down the dirt track deeper into the middle of Someplace.  It takes some time but eventually it snakes along the edge of a large fenced grove spotted with a few trees and picnic tables.  I continue passed, looking for a place to turn around when the road ends abruptly at an old, weather worn gate clearly posted with “GOV VEHICLES ONLY”.  Creepy.  I immediately think about how close I am to the New Mexico border then: New Mexico!?….Roswell!….Aliens!?…GOVT VEHICLES ONLY?!?!  Holy shit it’s some sort of cover up!  That’s why the place has such a horrible name! They don’t want anyone coming back here! What have I stumbled into!?

I turn around and drive back to the picnic tables.  The gate and sign are well out of sight from here but the low angle of light and the long shadows it creates, plus the stillness and eerie serenity of this place are all working together to freak me the fuck out.    

 
The crunch of tires on gravel makes me look up from my cooking just in time for an SUV to whip around a distant corner and into view.  It slows clumsily when I assume the driver has noticed me but never stops completely.  It crawls along….a snails pace…down the road and towards me.  I stir my dinner and pretend not to be watching the car. Now it’s close enough for me to see it has government plates.  Holy Shit! It’s going down! Right now! Some kinda crazy alien shit! You'll never be seen again! Prepare to become a statistic! All this in my head while I try to look not terrified.  My heart pounding.  I can see the driver now.  Dark sunglasses. Tight fitting, heavily starched uniform with official looking paraphernalia on the chest. My face hot, blood pumping with adrenaline.  He knows I’m looking at him and I get a single nod as I watch him slowly roll passed. Holding my breath.  A green stripe runs the length of the vehicles side. Underneath are printed the words ‘Border Patrol’. I let my breath out slowly and realize the South is worried about a different kinda aliens then I am.

I wake up early the next morning at the rest stop.  I really fit pretty well in the back of the jeep and can get a decent nights rest sleeping back there.  As I fix breakfast I go over todays plan in my head.  Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in the state of Texas and my most challenging hike yet.  8.5 miles round trip with a 3000 foot elevation gain.  I came up with the plan a few days ago; had to warm up to the idea.  I’m still not sure if I can make it and the memory of that first hike fiasco is still fresh in my mind.  For two days, while wandering shorter, less demanding trails, Guadalupe Peak looms in the background, taunting me. I keep telling myself I’ll regret it if i don't give it a shot.  Plus it’d be a decent metaphor.  For the most part living in Texas was a low point for me.  The circumstances that put me here were not the best and the events that occurred while I was here were the worst of my life.  So what better way to move on from those events and this state than from it’s highest point.  To climb from the depths of the lowest lows and up to the highest point this place has to offer, then climb out. And don’t look back….or something like that…Anyway, the day of the hike is here and I’m no more convinced that I can I do it, but I will try.

16.) Breaking Borders...Supply Exceeds Demand....Desert Winds...

     Excitement levels returned to astronomical levels shortly after due to my very first real life tumble weed sighting.  It’s the perfect word..tumble.  That’s precisely what they do.  Up and down they flow along the rolling hills like a skiff on the waves.  From the drivers seat, they appear cartoonish.  Most likely because that’s the only place I’ve had experience with them; on Saturday mornings in Yosemite Sam cartoons.  It may seem mundane, but it’s another new experience added to the list.  Their novelty wears thin however, after a fourth one bounces off the hood of the jeep.  They quickly become a nuisance and I grow tired of them.  Fifteen minuets later the excitement returns in full force after I see a real good one…

I make a short stop at the McDonald Observatory. While the surrounding landscape is beautiful, the observatory itself is basically a kids museum featuring outer space and broken exhibits.  The scene strikes me as strangely appropriate. The stars are the limit but the budget is the reality.  It really is comical.  I need not exaggerate.  Film strips zip along on rickety projectors. Stress cracks are clearly visible in the screen. Buttons and levers are broken or missing all together.  “At least they’re trying!” I think, “But sometimes supply exceeds demand.”

Hilltop McDonald Observatory

    I cook a dinner of chicken and rice at a rest stop and study the map.  I look to the horizon in a direction I believe to be west and the mountains that separate land from sky.  “That’s the Guadalupe mountains right there. I’m getting close.” I look back to the map which names several other mountain ranges in the area.  The Baylor Mountains, the Delaware Mountains.  I realize I have no idea which ones I'm looking at and wonder who decides where one range ends and another begins.  Places on a map are so well defined.  Packaged up inside visible lines and established borders. The ending of THIS place, the beginning of THAT place.  In real life it’s a gradual change like the seasons, where one slowly melts into the next. A change is only apparent after the fact.  The place you are now looks and feels different than the place you used to be but the actual border was probably crossed a long time ago.  No use wasting time going back looking for it now, you’ve been there already.  Better to explore this new place, where you are now.  Borders are imaginary anyway and in nearly all cases, arbitrary….geographically speaking.

I have this experience the following morning as what MUST be the Guadalupe Mountains climbs out of the horizon in front of me.  Nothing but a strip of asphalt and endless desert in my rearview.  No borders in sight, but I’m definitely somewhere new.  I can see El Capitan in the distance. The world’s largest marine fossil reef.  Millions of years ago this whole area was a tropical sea.  Slowly the water evaporated leaving the reef free to be covered by sediment.  Eventually intense pressure and erosion uncovered the reef and forced it back to the earth’s surface leaving the massive rock formation that dominates the landscape.  From here it’s all sharp corners and jagged edges but the sides look flat and smooth as if it’s growing straight up out of the desert floor.

The visitors center is nestled in the foothills with the actual mountains as a not too distant backdrop. I’ve already been spoiled by the enormity of Big Bend.  This park appears tiny to me but beautiful nonetheless. I spend the rest of the day wandering the trails through the foothills.  The Pinery Trail takes me past the remnants of a stone wall that once was part of the Butterfield Stage Stop.  The Butterfield Overland Mail route predates the pony express and could get your letter from San Francisco to St. Louis in a short 25 days.  No internet? No texting? And people survived? Oh the horror!  

The one and only campground around is in the park and only 8 bucks a night.  Sounds pretty sweet but upon closer inspection your 8 dollars gets you a concrete slab to pitch your tent  on and a concrete picnic table.  In this wind the table would only serve as a platform for your belongings to blow away from so I opt to save my 8 bucks and crash at the rest stop up the road.   The rest stop building helps in abating some of the wind and each picnic table here has a light and it’s own wind break making cooking dinner here very agreeable.  The sky darkens to purple across the highway as I take a few more steps toward perfecting sleeping in the jeep.

View from my dinner table