Adventures on the Border

Holy smokes! So much has happened since Big Bend it's hard to know where to start (and how to prevent this from turning into ten pages of blahblahblah).

This was our route:

We've been following the southwestern border with Mexico because it's still a bit too cold to venture farther north.

And here are a few highlights from each place we've visited:

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas: Our hiking plans were foiled once by winds gusting to 80 mph. Nearly foiled again by a backcountry fire! We hiked Guadalupe Peak, elevation 8749 feet, the highest point in Texas. Also, I earned my Junior Ranger badge and patch.

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico: The caves are more vast and more highly decorated (stalagtites, stalagmites, the whole deal) than you could possibly imagine. We walked down the Natural Entrance and around the Big Room. Though there were facilities for throngs of tourists, we had the entire silent, eerie place to ourselves (yay February visit!).

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico: I thought this would be cheesy, but WHOA it's SO cool! It was so much fun to run up and down the dunes, throwing sand and ourselves into the air, enjoying the contrast between the pure white sand and the brilliantly blue sky.

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Shitty weather and a need to talk to someone other than each other led us to another fantastic Couchsurfing host. I helped her made "authentic" Southwestern enchiladas with mole, played with the three dogs, and chatted about outdoor adventures.

Franklin Mountains State Park, Texas: Our Couchsurfing hosts tipped us off to a little crag called Sneed's Cory outside El Paso. Dave got to christen his new rope, and I made my first sport lead outdoors (on Spirit, 5.6).

Gila National Forest, Wilderness, and Cliff Dwellings, New Mexico: A return to pine forests after three weeks in sandy scrub was refreshing... and COLD! Overnight temps fell to 15-25º F. Chuck, our volunteer tour guide, made the Cliff Dwellings mysterious and exciting. We did an overnight trip up the Little Bear Canyon—a narrow, undulating crack—to camp at its junction with the Middle Fork of the Gila River under soaring, red cliffs. I accomplished 32 stream crossings without whining or anxiety to get from camp to the Jordan Hot Springs and back.

Saguaro National Park, Arizona: The saguaro cacti remind me of human-like trees, or tree-like humans, and they are delightful. In our wanderings around the Sonoran desert, we missed a turn and ended up in a dead-end canyon. Dave continued bushwhacking, while I tucked myself into a rock overcrop with my journal and my thoughts.

At the moment I'm in Tucson, a city whose highways and boulevards sprawl in every direction, a city with abundant sunshine and air but no water (like most southwestern cities, I guess). Today is our rest day, which means RESTING, and also straightening up the car, getting an oil change, putting together some food, internet time at the County Library, and catching up with friends and family.

From here, we're thinking of backtracking east a bit to Cochise Stronghold for a day of climbing, then continuing (surprise, surprise!) west to Joshua Tree National Park in California. We will be in Los Angeles by the 13th for Dave to fly to a job on the East Coast.

Those are the updates for now; library is closing so I gotta run!  I'll write again the next time I have internet access!

P.S. My best photos are posted at picasaweb.google.com/nicotedesco. The albums from White Sands and Saguaro are my favorites.

Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park is tucked into the, uh, big bend in the Rio Grande that forms the boundary between western Texas and Mexico. There are three distinct ecosystems here: the river, the desert, and the mountains. The Chisos Basin is in the middle of the park; plants and animals were stranded here in this relatively green, cool, moist pocket at the end of the last Ice Age as cooler temperatures receded north.

Memorable Moments

The highlights of my trip:

~Really tasty camp cooking... except for "cooking" a dehydrated Mountain House meal with solar "heated" water that was barely lukewarm, but hey it was still technically edible!
~The views from Toll Mountain campsite overlook...

~The Camelbak shower, stark naked in the middle of a desert, washing off five days worth of sweat and dust...
~Roadrunners, javelinas (like little wild pigs), miniature deer, coyote noises at night...
~Full moon, amazing night sky, zillions of stars...
~Dave's 27th birthday chocolate bar at the top of Emory Peak...
~Finally learning how to use a Whisperlite stove...
~Views from the South Rim...
~Spending most of an evening pulling those damn tiny, irritating cactus needles out of my arms, legs, and abdomen...



Ok, if you want to know more details about what we hiked and where we camped, read on...

Life Update!

That "big announcement" that I alluded to in the last post?

The Western Road Trip is happening. Right now, actually.

Dave and I left Raleigh on a Tuesday and drove up to the Blue Mountains, spending the night in Asheville. From Asheville out of the mountains and across the plains to Little Rock, Arkansas... then out of the plains and through the forest, across the Mississippi and south into the hot Tejano emptiness to Austin, Texas... from Austin to the empty, searing, parched, wild country of western Texas.

Along the way, we couchsurfed with some excellent people who have given me plenty of encouragement that I'm headed in the right direction, which always seems to be West.

So we ended up in Big Bend National Park. That deserves its own post. In fact, west Texas deserves its own post, too.

What's the plan? Right now, I'm taking it one day at a time. We talk to people and that's how we decide where to go. Seems like we keep running into the right people! Most likely, we'll stay in the Southwest (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern California, and southern Utah), unless it warms up enough to head north of the 35th latitude.

What is life like these days? All of our stuff fits precisely into the back of Dave's Toyota Matrix. I've got the necessities; much of my wardrobe is exactly the same duds I've been wearing for the past year. Just keep sewing up the holes. We can sleep in the back by piling our bags and crates onto the driver's and passenger's seats, which is very convenient. Most of the time, though, we sleep in a tent. We've been doing "primitive" camping: bringing in our own water, digging our own latrine holes, and using headlamps for light. We've made all our food with one pot over a single campstove flame. Chow has been pretty good thus far; recipes forthcoming as well. In my opinion, hardly "primitive." Exactly what I need; nothing more, nothing less.

What do we do? During the day, we're either hiking or driving. Dave does most of the driving, because I get too sleepy and distracted. In the passenger's seat, I prep snacks, change the music, try not to sleep all the time, and beg Dave to stop at everything I find interesting (which is too much).

How am I affording all this travel? I get asked that frequently, and I don't think most folks understand exactly how short our shoestring budget is. The other day we spent a little under $40 for groceries, buying 34 items, and that will feed us for days. Twenty bucks total for the both of us for camping the entire time we were in Big Bend (one $10 night outside the park, one $10 backcountry permit). Gas is expensive, of course. At some point, I'll do a few budgeting posts about how I saved for this trip and what my principle expenses have been (I'm a former analyst—you betcha I kept track).

By picking up odd jobs and seasonal jobs, I could probably live like this forever... or until I wanted to have a community or to buy land or to go back to school or to have a kid. I do find something approaching profound in being forced to live in the moment, to be present to enjoy today, to leave tomorrow to take care of itself. Still, eventually I'm going to want to do one or more of the above things.

So what's next? Due to a combination of family and personal factors, we'll be back on the east coast sometime this spring. Dave and I are looking at jobs back in the Finger Lakes and northwards. I might want to go back to school (though I'm not ready to say what I'll be studying). If it looks like we'll stay put, it might be time to put our names on a piece of land. I like the idea of buying a yurt: one, it's sturdier than a nylon tent; two, I dislike debt and a mortgage is just that; three, we can always pick it up and move again.

There's my update. What's new with you?