Nature: Asserting its dominance since the dawn of time

Every once in a while, I'm struck by the notion that this land is not ours. Of course, that's obvious when something like Japan, Indonesia, Haiti, or New Orleans happens. But it never strikes me until I'm standing before nature myself, even though the impacts that I see with my own eyes pale in comparison to the aforementioned catastrophes.

It hit me when I was standing in Pompeii looking toward Mt. Vesuvius. People who stood in that exact spot before fell to the whim of that cantankerous beast. That I could stand there then is only because the volcano allowed me to.

And last night, as I walked down to the newly expanded Mississippi River, I was in awe of how she just takes what she wants and anybody with good sense gets out of her way when she does so. This isn't even a particularly bad flood; everything that is flooded now floods every year. That's the nature of the river, and if we want to live here, we have to do so around it.

And it's so very tempting to kayak down the bike path. Too bad I don't own a kayak.

Land of Enchantment all over the place

I had such a good time last year (the Lake is a Lie incident excluded ;^) that I decided to do another epic driving vacation this year. We have an awesomely beautiful country (unless you're not from the US, in which case I'm sure your country is perfectly lovely as well). This year I decided to venture to the southwest, where I've never set foot before.

March 5-8 were spent in Albuquerque, which is the only place to which I've ever traveled and thought "I could totally live here." The photo below is from Old Town, which is basically where you go to give Albuquerque all of your money.


On March 6, I ventured up to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, where I hiked through the very aptly named Slot Canyon. These were some pretty spectacular rock formations.


On March 7th, a friend and I went to Petroglyphs National Monument which is a 1-mile hike along rocks decorated with ancient petroglyphs and more modern graffiti art. Our hatred of vandals intensified throughout the walk. Specifically, some guy named Tom.


Later that day, we went to the aquarium in Albuquerque, which was perfectly lovely but had nothing on the parking lot of said aquarium. For the parking lot contained a road runner! And he ran right at me! He didn't catch me, though, for he is neither as large as he appears on TV nor a coyote.


I woke up in the slightly wee hours of March 8 to drive to Arizona where there was, shockingly enough, snow. Maybe an inch. Enough to leave semis and cars strewn about the ditches in its wake. In any case, I made my way to Petrified Forest National Park, which includes a goodly portion of the Painted Desert and is very scenic. This park was largely a driving park; there are only a few short hiking trails and a lot of the petrified wood has been stolen/vandalized. The top photo is of the Painted Desert with a bit of snow, and the bottom photo shows a petrified log sitting atop the rocks.



On March 9th, I was able to make a photo tour at Tonto National Monument, which features two sets of ye olde cliff dwellings. The upper cliff dwellings (where we hiked to) are only available by guided tour. Thanks again, vandals. Once again, the views were spectacular and made it entirely worth the long slog to the top. It was especially refreshing to be on a tour where I could take as much time as I wanted to set up and take photos.



I stayed in Tucson that night, which was very close to my next stop on March 10: Saguaro National Park, which is very fun to say. Here I took a guided tour about desert life in the saguaro forest. It was really interesting and I saw this really befuddled saguaro below:



I drove to Las Cruces for the night and saw this in my rearview mirror, so had to stop to take a photo of it.


March 11th was all about the White Sand. I went to the missile range first and then on to White Sands National Monument, where I plopped down on a nice, cool dune and stared out at the other dunes for close to an hour. Very soothing and beautiful and all that. I was able to be on the dunes for sunset that night, which I highly recommend!



I spent the night in El Paso, which was the first time I've ever been in Texas. I wasn't there for too long, though. I had to get up to drive in the morning before the sun even rose. It was a beautiful sunrise, though!


The reason for my early rising was that I had a 10:00 tour at Slaughter Canyon, which is a part of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There was a 45-minute hike to the canyon entrance, so I had to leave plenty of time for that. the hike was pretty brutal. It was a 500-ft elevation gain over half a mile. The cave was not the greatest one I've been in. The floor was very slippery and there was a lot of evidence of guano mining, which is not a good thing. The features all had black goo on them from motorized equipment being used there, despite regulations not allowing it. Still, the columns below were pretty impressive (I included people for scale).

After Slaughter Canyon, I went back into Texas to see Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I only did a couple hours of hiking here. It's definitely more geared toward all-day and multi-day hiking. It looks like a beautiful place to be if you have more time.


After Guadalupe, I went back into New Mexico to the main cave at Carlsbad, which at that time was only accessible by elevator (the natural entrance closes after a certain hour to ensure that there's time to exit before the park closes). I descended 750 ft into the Big Room, which was pretty impressive, but it was a lot more touristy than the other caves I've been to. There was a paved path all the way around and the cave was lit. There were certainly some interesting formations, but I may have been caved out by this time. :^)

I stayed in Roswell that night (no UFO sightings), and then headed back up to Albuquerque for my last day. On the last night, Lael and I took the tram to the top of Sandia Peak to catch the sunset. The sunset was okay, but the view was still fabulous. This is Albuquerque from the top of the tram:

This vacation was completely exhausting, but I would do it all again!

Slowly whittling away at my lists.

It's a fun list to whittle. :^)

Here's my updated list of National Parks, with the completed ones in Bold. Crater Lake gets to be crossed off despite being nothing more than a sign posted on a mountain.

Acadia National Park	Maine	1919
National Park of American Samoa	American Samoa	1988
Arches National Park	Utah	1971
Badlands National Park	South Dakota	1978
Big Bend National Park	Texas	1944
Biscayne National Park	Florida	1980
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park	Colorado	1999
Bryce Canyon National Park	Utah	1928
Canyonlands National Park	Utah	1964
Capitol Reef National Park	Utah	1971
Carlsbad Caverns National Park	New Mexico	1930
Channel Islands National Park	California	1980
Congaree National Park	South Carolina	2003
Crater Lake National Park	Oregon	1902
Cuyahoga Valley National Park	Ohio	2000
Death Valley National Park	California, Nevada	1994
Denali National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1917
Dry Tortugas National Park	Florida	1992
Everglades National Park	Florida	1947
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Glacier National Park (part of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park)	Montana	1910
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Grand Canyon National Park	Arizona	1919
Grand Teton National Park	Wyoming	1929
Great Basin National Park	Nevada	1986
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve	Colorado	2004
Great Smoky Mountains National Park	North Carolina, Tennessee	1934
Guadalupe Mountains National Park	Texas	1966
Haleakala National Park	Hawaii	1916
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park	Hawaii	1916
Hot Springs National Park	Arkansas	1921
Isle Royale National Park	Michigan	1940
Joshua Tree National Park	California	1994
Katmai National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Kenai Fjords National Park	Alaska	1980
Kings Canyon National Park	California	1940
Kobuk Valley National Park	Alaska	1980
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Lassen Volcanic National Park	California	1916
Mammoth Cave National Park	Kentucky	1941
Mesa Verde National Park	Colorado	1906
Mount Rainier National Park	Washington	1899
North Cascades National Park	Washington	1968
Olympic National Park	Washington	1938
Petrified Forest National Park	Arizona	1962
Redwood National and State Parks	California	1968
Rocky Mountain National Park	Colorado	1915
Saguaro National Park	Arizona	1994
Sequoia National Park	California	1890
Shenandoah National Park	Virginia	1935
Theodore Roosevelt National Park	North Dakota	1978
Virgin Islands National Park	U.S. Virgin Islands	1956
Voyageurs National Park	Minnesota	1975
Wind Cave National Park	South Dakota	1903
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Yellowstone National Park	Idaho, Montana, Wyoming	1872
Yosemite National Park	California	1890
Zion National Park	Utah	1919

I was able to shade in 3 more of the states, leaving only 15 left to visit.