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". . . But how miraculously clean it was, all about him, whiter
than anything he knew, whiter than anything, whiter. The second ridge was packed
harder than the first; he climbed up, almost sank, jumped for safety to the other
side, hastily brushed himself off. Sidewalk snow, riddled with salt, tramped down
by the feet of children, reddened with ashes, growing dirtier as it neared the
school.
Sidewalk snow never stayed white . . . "
"What do you want to do for Spring Break?"
"What?" I looked up from Call it Sleep, the book I was reading
for my Philosophy of Literature class.
"What do you want do for Spring Break?" Kenny repeated.
"I don't know. I guess just load up the car, start driving and see where we
end up."
"Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. We could either head west to
the canyonlands of Arizona and Southern Utah or we could go to beaches in
Florida. I have a cousin that has a condo out that way."
"Let's just flip a coin that Friday before we leave."
"Alright," Kenny agreed. Not making plans added to the spontaneity and
therefore the excitement of the trip. You can't be disappointed that you didn't
get to see anything you planned to see and anything you happen to run into is
totally unexpected, a bonus event. The world is a random place - trying to give
it order can only be done through work. On a road trip, work is the last thing
you want to do.
I was going to graduate from
Texas A&M
soon and Spring Break was coming at a good time for me. It didn't look like there
would be any jobs for me where I co-oped (
JPL) and the other job prospects didn't seem
especially attrative to me. The search was beginning to wear me down. I wasn't so
much distressed at the fact that I hadn't found a job yet as I was at the fact
that the perfect one wasn't out there. I had always expected there to be this one
clearly superior job waiting for me after graduation. One that would give me a
sense of accomplishment and at the same time allow me to stay close to friends
and to pursue ambitions outside of the engineering field. I thought there would
be a job that I would go all-out for and work at until I got it. But as
graduation approached I found myself ready to accept a job that would simply
allow me to eat and pay rent. I'd been wondering if I should wait until I found
that perfect job or if I should take a lesser job and make the best of it. I felt
like a little boy who, upon realizing he was lost in a department store, didn't
know whether to stay where he was and wait for someone to find him or to go try
to search for his mother in the store. The indecision had become somewhat
disconcerting and I needed some time away to think it over.
I tried to go back to reading my book but, while my eyes scanned the words, my
mind was processing the potential routes we could take during the break. There
are all kinds of scenic drives, hiking, and mountain biking out west. The desert
offers an unadulterated isolation, a rugged quietude that grabs you by the back
of the neck and forces the tension out of your body but never lets you escape the
starkness of your own thoughts.
If we were to go to Florida the trip itself wouldn't be quite as beautiful but
the destination would certainly be more exciting. All kinds of people (read: all
kinds of girls) from different schools all over the country. Most of them drunk
and everyone there with the sole intention of having fun.
But somehow the beach didn't sound nearly as attractive as it had when I was
an underclassman. The majority of people that go to the beach for Spring Break
are high school seniors or college freshman and sophomores; people still trying
to assert their independence by demonstrating their ability to ignore the wisdom
of their parents or society in general. The pure ideals that cultivated their
personalities have to be torn from the sky and brought down to the earth to be
tread upon in order to be given a basis in reality - similar to the way that
Christians are able to give the abstract and infinite concept of God a finite and
temporal meaning with the belief that Jesus became man and was crucified. Nothing
can be fully appreciated or understood unless it is first rejected and attacked
from every angle. A great number of the people on the beach are attacking the
values they were raised with to see if they can withstand their onslaught of
excess. It is a necessary war for many people and, as with any battle, some
destruction is left in its path. Unfortunately most people refuse to acknowledge
any suffering they may have caused to themselves or others the same way some
people refuse to acknowledge a disabled homeless man begging for food on the
sidewalk. Sometime over the past few years, the glitter of the Spring Break at
the beach seemed to have worn off.
Sidewalk snow never stayed white.
By the time spring break rolled around Kenny and I had both decided that we'd
rather spend the break exploring the American West than crawling over the hordes
of people on the beaches. I was a little discouraged at my job porspects and I
was starting to realize that in a few weeks I would be leaving my friends and the
school I had grown so accustomed to being around. I needed the time to think and
reflect more than I needed time to drink and regurgitate.
Kenny and I had originally planed to make our way out to Utah and the Grand
Canyon but Toyota had called me asking to fly me to Detroit for an interview
Wednesday evening so our break had to be shortened considerably. We decided to
only go as far west as Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. On Friday we left College
Station for Austin to stock up on free stuff from Kenny's parents and to hit
Sixth Street. Austin's Sixth Street, like New Orlean's Bourbon Street, used to be
one of those incredible and unique places to go for music. But also like Bourbon
it has become overrun with night clubs and bars designed more to attract the
hard-drinking college student than the discerning music fan. When Antone's, the
bar where Stevie Ray Vaughan started, moved to another part of Austin, so did the
soul of Sixth Street. While Kenny and I were both huge blues fans we were also
still hard-drinking college students so we went to Sixth Street anyway. After
stopping off at a few bars, we walked down the street and passed a skinny old man
with a cigarette hanging loosely in his mouth. He was sitting on the sidewalk
playing an old blues song on a beat up acoustic guitar and panhandling for
money.
After passing him I jokingly remarked to Kenny, "That'll be me in a few
years."
Kenny knew I was still looking for a job so, without missing a beat, he dryly
retorted, "That'll be you in a few months."
The next night we drove to Dallas so we could mooch some free stuff off of my
parents and so Kenny could see his girlfriend. We left early the next morning on
our way toward Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico with the hope that we'd be able to
see the bats take flight at sunset. After traveling on Highway 20 for a while we
detoured onto a smaller highway. This highway cut through the wide open lands of
West Texas farms and the Chihuahuan Desert. The road was straight, flat and
offered no place for a cop to hide. The sun roof was opened and the accelerator
was fully engaged as we raced toward New Mexico at 95 to 100 miles per hour.
We got to the Caverns a full two hours before we expected to. After winding
through the desert hills to the Visitor's Center we found a ranger and
immediately asked him, "Where do we go to see the bats?"
"Mexico," was the sarcastic reply. The literature we had on Carlsbad said the
bats returned to the park in early spring. The truth was that the bats don't
migrate back until early May. Slightly disappointed we bought tickets to tour the
cave and walked toward the elevators that drop you into he depths of the caverns.
As Kenny and I stepped into the elevator we passed a girl who was about 20 to 25
years old and leading a high school group on some kind of retreat or field trip.
While she wasn't a model, she had an natural outdoors attractiveness and a
peaceful face that seemed easy to approach. I made a mental note to make that
approach later.
The elevators doors opened and we entered
into the chasms. The great dark expanses of the cave littered with stalagmites,
stalactites, columns and formations left one with the impression of entering the
maw of some great earthen beast, similar to when Han Solo walked out of the
Millennium Falcon and into the mouth of the giant slug in The Empire
Strikes Back . We walked around the cave on the marked path for about a
hour. The caverns were an impressive sight but it quickly became boring as there
was no sense of adventure walking on a wheelchair accessible path with all the
interesting sights lighted and marked like exhibits at a science fair. I
quickened my steps toward the elevators hoping to catch up with the cute girl I
saw in the Visitors Center.
As Kenny and I entered the elevator waiting room I caught view of the girl
sitting on the bench with some of the kids in her group. The elevator soon
arrived and we all crowded in to return to the top. As I passed her I caught her
eye and smiled. She smiled back but I didn't get the come-hither look I had hoped
for. It was more like the smile a nice grandmother gives to a someone passing on
a neighborhood street. Disappointed but undaunted I decided to try again when we
reached the top.
After everyone poured out of the elevators I went to the gift shop to buy a
postcards and noted that the cute girl followed me with her friend. I was
considering striking up a conversation with her when Kenny walked up and stood in
front of me.
He whispered quickly, "They're nuns."
"What?"
"They're nuns," Kenny repeated more urgently.
I waited for this information to process in my brain and tried to make sense
of it. I couldn't.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"How do you know?"
"One of the kids asked one of them for some M&M's and she said 'I think
Sister Mary gave them all away already.' The cute one looked at the kid and said
'I did, I'm sorry.'"
Soundly defeated I paid for my post cards and headed for the door. This time I
didn't bother to make eye contact.
We left Visitor's Center and checked out the park map. The visit to the caverns
was somewhat of a bust but the trip there, driving at 100 miles per hour through
the desert with the sun roof open as Steppenwolf pounded out "Born to be Wild",
made the journey more exciting than the destination. Maybe that's how it should
be. Still, the destination is what gives the journey its viability and its hard
to move forward without at least the promise of a pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow.
The map showed a hiking trail and we decided to head toward it.
After driving a ways on a dirt and gravel road
we hit the trailhead, put some water and apples into a backpack and headed out.
The trail wound its way through the thick, angry desert brush out toward a canyon
overlook. The sun had already started to set causing the desolate colors of the
sand on the mountain behind us to transform to a golden radiance. The small cacti
and juniper trees contrasted the enlivened earth with their shadows refusing to
blend with the sand, expressing their browns and greens with newfound audacity
and raising their branches and blades to the sky in a swan song for the ending
day.
I looked over out into the canyon where the light from the low sun was
blocked. All sense of depth was erased by the shadows from the mountains. Here
the sand had returned to a dull yellowish brown. The leaves and blades of the
vegetation seemed to hang listlessly as if lamenting their misfortune in not
having grown on the sunset side of the mountain. The juniper trees in the shadow
of the mountain looked defeated when compared to the trees still celebrating in
the light. I tried to estimate how deep and long the canyon was but the
combination of piercing dusk sunlight and muting shadows of the imminent night
made it impossible to judge.
After climbing back into the car we headed south toward Guadalupe Mountains
National Park in Texas. We got there well after dark to find all of the campsites
full. The closest city with hotels was White's City back at Carlsbad. Unwilling
to drive back there and unable to pay for it anyway we parked the car in a
highway picnic area, pulled the sleeping bags out of the trunk to use as
blankets, and went to sleep in the rigidly accommodating belly of my Toyota
Celica.
The next morning we
awoke to a spectacular view of El Capitan, a monolithic mountain of ancient rock
and desert vegetation, cloaked by low flying clouds that clung to its sides and
peak like a smothering, pillowy cotton blanket. The sleeping bags were rolled up
and returned to the trunk and we left our asphalt campsite for the more natural
confines of the park.
Upon arriving at the visitors center we reserved a campsite in nearby
McKittrick Canyon to avoid having to sleep in the car again and then picked out
an eleven mile hike that gained 3000 feet into the cloud capped mountains and
wound through a forest at the top of the peaks called the Bowl. The Bowl got its
name from of the natural shape of the shallow valley that sits at the top of the
peaks. There is no path for water to run out of the valley so the fertile soil
has not washed out towards the Rio Grande like the rest of the area. A pine
forest worthy of the High Sierras sits cradled in the middle of the West Texas
desert.
My backpack was loaded with water and food and Kenny and I started hiking
below overcast skies that pushed the temperaturedown to around 40 degrees F. As
the day wore on the sun glowed through the translucent skies and began to raise
the temperature slightly but the low clouds stoically refused to budge. We shed a
few layers of clothes and continued our ascent until we were inside the clouds we
were looking up at that morning.
The temperature
dropped sharply as the enveloping whiteness surrounded us and restricted our view
to about twenty feet. Once we crossed the crest of the first ridge of mountains
the vegetation changed dramatically. The low, harsh desert brush had suddenly
blossomed into a towering forest of pine and Douglas fir. A strong wind blew
almost constantly from the desert side of the mountain causing the limbs of some
trees to grow in the one direction as if pointing the way toward the Bowl.
Occasional gusts would push the cloud back, creating pockets of clear air and
allowing us to see a hundred feet or more into the forest before the fog would
creep back in around us.
I could hear rain drops lightly falling but I didn't feel any wetness on my
skin. I wondered if the skies were about to open up on us but quickly realized
what was happening as we approached the first of many pine trees. The thick
humidity of the cloud was causing water to condense on the needles and then drop
as the pine created its own rainstorm to saturate its roots. It was raining, but
only under the trees. Kenny and I stood under the pine with our mouths open and
tasted some of the best water we'd had since leaving the glacier fed rivers of
Yosemite (see
To Moo is the Great Affair).
After the novelty of rain under the trees wore off, we began to wander again
until we stumbled upon a cliff.
As the strong and
steady wind blew into our faces Kenny and I stood on the edge and peered off into
the Great White Nothing of the cloud that had quietly crept up right next to us.
There was no way to tell how far we would fall if we were to jump off of the
cliff. And the cloud seemed to be beckoning us to try. I continued to stare out
at the cloud. There was an almost magical brightness all around me but there
didn't seem to be any source to the light. And it was white - whiter than
anything I knew. It seemed to be promising me that I could jump and fly forever.
I could fly anywhere. I could fly to any mountaintop. Any one I wanted. It was my
choice. My decision. The promise was there. But the Great White Nothing and its
promise wasn't reassuring me.
