Voyager America  

In the Time of COVID....

For the most part, our travels during this pandemic have been safe and we luckily have remained symptom free.  We have been able to travel from state to state with no restriction and nearly everyone we've come in contact with has been welcoming, courteous, and wearing a mask. We've followed the few simple rules: wear a mask, keep a safe distance from others, especially indoors, and we wash our hands frequently.  Somewhere in Texas, we decided to only get our food in markets or as take out, no longer eating in restaurants.  Much like we did in Philadelphia, we spend our time just together and doing outdoor things like hiking, birding, and bike riding, or touring around in our car. We are able to do almost everything we would like to do and feel safe doing it. 

The San Miguel Mission Church, Santa Fe. 
It is referred to as the oldest church in the
United States and was originally built around 1610.

This sign hangs on the doors to the San Miguel Mission seen behind us in the photo above.
The State of New Mexico started a 2-week lockdown and stay at home order on
November 16 to hopefully reverse the alarming escalation of COVID cases in the state.

Highway signs like these are seen all over the state.

New Mexico began an all-state lockdown almost two weeks ago.  They plan to loosen restrictions a bit this coming week, but will still be under state-wide restrictions until the number of cases begins to dissipate. There is a state order here to wear masks and most people are complying with this.  Like everywhere in the world, those people who are the poorest are suffering the most in New Mexico.  

Native nations make up about 10% of New Mexico's population, but account for 23% of the state's COVID cases and, more devastatingly, over 40% of the deaths due to COVID.  The communal nature of the Native people, a clear strength, is now one of the main causes for the spread of the disease.  All of the Pueblos and reservations have been closed to others, and coming and going for those living in them is monitored closely. The Navajo Nation, the largest native group in New Mexico, has a small portion of their reservation in Alamo, just down the road from where we are staying in Magdalena. Along with the great loss and suffering caused by COVID, the disruption to traditional ways and sacred practices has created a deep wound.

All pueblos and reservations in New Mexico are closed to outsiders because of the alarmingly
high number of COVID cases. Pueblo residents who must leave their homes for work are being
carefully monitored. 

The Days Inn in Socorro will continue to house COVID-19
patients who are in quarantine from the nearby Alamo Navajo
Indian Reservation.

The Visitor Centers at all national parks and monuments are closed.
Many of them, such as Bandelier National Monument near Santa Fe, have tables set up outdoors
with lots of park information and a park ranger there to answer any questions.

Signs plastered over the entrance to a Sprouts market in Santa Fe state "FACE MASKS REQUIRED
FOR ENTRY" and "FEELING SICK? PLEASE DO NOT COME INTO OUR STORE WHEN YOU
ARE FEELING SICK!" They also post a list of behaviors to follow such as only touch the products
you'd like to purchase and don't sample any products in the store.

We have seen how hard so many regular folks are working to get through the pandemic and also to help so many others get through, too.  We both feel so grateful for such efforts and understand that a trip like we are taking could only be safe because of the efforts of so many people.  Each day we try to remain vigilant and almost all of our actions and plans are made to stay out of harms way. We are also saddened and dismayed at the continued strength of this disease and at how easy it seems to be to let one's guard down, which then can aid significantly in spreading it. Like many of us, we are encouraged by the vaccine progress.  We also hope we can continue to come together as a nation to follow those simple rules that can cut down significantly on COVID's spread-----and that we see clearly who is in most need----and help life become more safe for them.   

 Voyager America  

Folk Art: Numero Uno....very cool stuff

The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM, states:

Folk Art is of, by, and for the people; all people inclusive of class, status, culture, community, ethnicity, gender, and religion. Folk Art is traditional; it reflects shared cultural aesthetics and social issues. (Unfortunately, due to Covid restrictions and lockdown in NM, this and all other museums were closed during our stay. A great disappointment, but necessary.)

In these very difficult and turbulent times when our country and the world are dealing with unprecedented challenges and catastrophes, the human spirit rises above all the heartache and finds ways to make the world a better place and ways to be our best selves. Many of these folk art pieces represent a window into our daily lives, our culture and our hearts, bringing much insight (sometimes hard to own), inspiration and also joy to those of us who stop to look, reflect and become enriched.

And as Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park..."Life finds a way!"

Early Folk Art. Petroglyphs from Petroglyphs National Monument outside of Albuquerque.
Most of the drawings here are from the Ancestral Pueblo people and are around 500 years old.

George Floyd illustration, Magdalena, NM

Metal cutout on Magdalena, NM, ranch

Sandhill Cranes mural in Socorro, NM. Every fall, thousands of these birds migrate from the
northern Rockies, Canada, Alaska and Siberia to spend the winter along the Rio Grande Valley 
at places like Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge south of Socorro.
Typically they begin to arrive by Halloween and stay through February.

 Aliens have landed in Socorro at the Shell station.

"The Sticker Bus" in Carlsbad, NM, in loving memory of the Sticker King, sells Chinese food.

Ledoux Street in the historic section of Taos, NM.

Huge cutouts of James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson (in convertible) and Second-empire Victorian mansion from the 1956 Western drama,  "Giant", shot on location in and around the town of Marfa, TX. The movie is an epic portrayal of a powerful Texas ranching family challenged by changing times and the coming of big oil. A subplot concerns the racism of many Anglo European Americans in Texas during the mid twentieth century and the discriminatory social segregation enforced against Mexican Americans.

Carved wooden and ceramic figures and creatures adorn
this little house in Marathon, TX

The Bottle Man in Golden, NM, along the Turquoise Trail. Everything is for sale.

Magdalena Cemetery

This mural is on the exterior wall of the Tesuque Market in Tesuque Village, NM

Stay tuned for more Folk Art in upcoming posts

Voyager America

Welcome to the Boom Town...

Santa Fe Plaza store window

Tesuque neighborhood

Traveling, even if one pays a little attention, is a rolling lesson in history. Of course, what constitutes "history" is a question under much scrutiny today, and rightfully so. Does the focus of history revolve around big people and big events, or is it, like Tolstoy believed, the sum total of the multitude of variables and decisions made by all involved? Is history more accurately told locally, regionally, nationally, internationally, or some swirling composite of these areas? Who gets included and who tells the stories? Whose voice is left out and why? Is "knowing" history just interesting in itself, or is it possible that "knowing" history can lead us to make decisions that move us "ahead"?  All in all, we are a nation that does not want to pay too much attention to all this. We seem to understand and make sense of things mostly within the frame of our own lifetimes and mostly within those "histories" that we perceive have some direct impact on us.

I hadn't been in Gatesville for almost 40 years, Big Bend National Park for 40 years, and not at Carlsbad Caverns for 50 years. So, for parts of this trip, I'm reliving my own personal history.  Leaving Philadelphia and traveling through West Virginia (see our first blog), Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico has taken us through some distinct regions. However, a common theme has been the boom or bust cycle our American economy spurs. Very few places we have visited are in some kind of stasis, that grand American vision of "hometown". Rather, places are either in a boom phase, like north Dallas, Texas, or in a state of decay because the economic engine has left their station, like Coalwood, West Virginia. Each specific region adds particular details: geography, weather and water availability, the different people living in an area and their mutual and competing interests, the prior histories of a region and of the people living in the region, innovation and technology and their effects on each area, the rise of new consumer demands (just who creates these "demands" is interesting to consider), the US military interest in a given region, the US and State Constitutions, and tribal laws that hold jurisdiction in an area, and the effects of luck and serendipity to name but some factors.

Santa Fe streets

Carrizozo, NM, streets

Technology and the Internet can lead to new possibilities, like the company in Gatesville, Medical Plastics Laboratory,  that makes life-like plastic skeletons and sells them worldwide to hospitals and medical schools. The national homogenization of hotel chains, dollar stores, Walmarts, fast food places, drug stores, gas stations, and hardware stores has led to most towns with more than 5,000 people having a similar strip of businesses on the main highway by the town, but not in the older, downtown area, which is usually less vital. While all of this does help stabilize local economies, it does not reach more deeply into the boom or bust cycle. If a town is going bust because its economic engine has dried up, these enterprises will go bust with it. The surface scars of towns and areas after the bust are easy to see. The deeper wounds of this American process lie more hidden in the hearts and minds of our people and get played out as we move to create the future.

In thinking about economic concerns, a metaphor that has recently surfaced is the idea of "invasive plants". Living in Philadelphia, I'm aware there is a clear movement to return the region to its native flora and rid the area of non-native, invasive plants. Native flora, it is believed, best sustains a local, ecological balance into the future. What would a "native" economic venture look like that did not simply destroy (take over) local businesses, but was compatible with them, and also could fold more seamlessly back into the local economy (life) when it was no longer profitable? Can the boom or bust cycle be replaced with a more consistently evolving process by creating business ventures that meet a "native plant" standard?

Madrid, NM: From coal town to artist colony

Magdalena, NM, our home for the past three weeks boomed in 1885 when a spur of the Santa Fe railroad arrived. Magdalena quickly became a regional hub for shipping cattle and sheep to other parts of the region and country. 1919 is the high water mark for the number of animals shipped from Magdalena, 21,677 cattle and 150,00 sheep. Ore extraction of Smithsonite, also benefitting from the railroad, added to the boom. Some of the remnants of the boom are still quite visible, but the effects on the citizens today is, at best, only a guess on my part. However, I wish such histories and changes, and their effects on people's lives, will be brought to the light of day for everyone. From such publicly open insight, can a more sustaining and inclusive life be attained? 

Magdalena - Santa Fe Railroad Station

Magdalena Shipping Pens

Magdalena Hotel

In Santa Fe, we came across this forceful, native woodcarving in a shop window. The description of the piece offered by the artist is another view of American history and economy. This voice is certainly part of the open insight hoped for above.

Second Prize Carving at 96th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market

See Text Below

"Together with Spirit and Nature We Fight"

This piece was made to symbolize the "State of Our World". There is a fight going on that has been exposed to the modern world. A battle known only by those who understand that the Earth is our mother and our home: we only have one. As caretakers of the Earth, we were meant to live in harmony with nature, not destroy it. Mankind, as a whole, now understands the steps we must take to change the state of our world. Clean means of energy are available but we battle the hold of fossil fuels and its industrial empire. Proud Warrior God Katsina, is representing the Warrior Spirit of Mankind. He is battling a two-headed serpent representing the oil industry and its coils on humanity. The red tailed hawk represents "Mother Nature" and its response to the industry's ignorance. As technology has grown in the past fifty years, so has the incline of natural catastrophes.  We can change and save our Mother, but only as one. 

WE MUST LEARN HOW TO LIVE BETTER FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.

 Voyager America  

BIG Natural Wonders Continue:

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Carlsbad, NM

The Natural Entrance Trail into the caverns.

"Beauty and wonder...above and below. High ancient sea ledges, deep rocky canyons, flowering cactus, and desert wildlife...treasures above the ground in the Chihuahuan Desert. Hidden beneath the surface are more than 119 caves...formed when sulfuric acid dissolved limestone leaving behind caverns of all sizes and strange but beautiful creations everywhere."

I last passed through Gatesville, Texas, almost 40 years ago and last passed through Big Bend National Park 40 years ago.  Now it is on to Carlsbad Caverns which I have only visited once before, 50 years ago, the summer of 1970.  I came here with two friends, David Apple and Tom McAbee.  We were on an eight week road trip around America just after David and I graduated from Pennridge High. Tom had just finished his freshman year at Hamilton College.  We spent a few good days with David's relatives, the Hunsickers, in El Paso, Texas.  We then drove from El Paso to Carlsbad straight through the night.  And what a ride: I remember the road being filled with jackrabbits, snakes, and Night Hawks----they came onto the tar road at night for its warmth and seemed to be everywhere.  We slept in the car in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park parking lot until they opened and then ventured inside.  The world inside the cave was beyond imagination---so huge---so beautiful---who knew such things existed. From my last time in the cave, I remembered the immensity of the Big Room, that a 37 story building could fit into one part of it (I actually remembered it to be 17 stories so it was way bigger than I remembered), and I remembered these very delicate shapes, called helictites, that were in a part of the cave we did not now have access to. 50 years is an amazing stretch of time to reckon with.  This awesome cave was the perfect place to enjoy such a reckoning. 

Some of the Giants that tower above our heads.

The caverns are filled with stalagmites, stalactites and so many other strange and fascinating formations.

 

The Big Room. Floor space in the Big Room is about the size of 14 football fields.

This formation is called Drapery.

Some of these long formations are as thin as soda straws.

In the lower right corner of this photo you can see the railings along the walking path.
It lends some perspective to the immensity of the area of this chamber of the Big Room.

White Sands National Park, Alamagordo, NM

Our first glimpse of White Sands National Park in the far distance. 
The white strip before the distant mountains is the park.

"Like No Place Else on Earth. Rising from the heart of the Tularosa Basin is one of the world's great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, creating the world's largest gypsum dunefield. White Sands National Park preserves a major portion of this unique dunefield, along with the plants and animals that live there."

After an mind-blowing time at Carlsbad Caverns, we drove over the Sacramento Mountains and through the Lincoln Forest to Alamagordo, NM on our way to White Sands National Monument. Because of Covid precautions, the Visitor Centers of the national parks and monuments are not open, however each location usually has a table outdoors, manned by a park ranger, with maps, pamphlets and other sources of information about each location. The ranger at White Sands was extremely excited to tell us about a very recent geological find that has elevated the status of the National Monument to a National Park.....White Sands National Park! 

In 2018, scientists discovered footprints that appear to show humans stalking a giant sloth. The human footprints were found inside the footprints of the sloth as it was tracked. Another set of footprints discovered is believed to be a young female who walked for over a mile with a toddler's footprints occasionally showing up besides her. This is really amazing. You can read more about these incredible discoveries on the White Sands website under Fossilized Footprints. Also National Geographic recently published an article in October of 2020 about these extraordinary finds. Type National Geographic White Sands into your browser to read this story.

White Sands National Park occupies just a portion of this massive gypsum dunefield. You can stand out in the dunes and see nothing but sand, immediately transported to another place and time....and maybe even another planet or moon. A road takes you 8 miles into the dunefield. There are hiking trails, picnic areas, back-country campsites and huge dunes you can slide down. And the sand is pure white and so fine, sparkling like crystals in the sun.

There is another side, a dark side, to these pure white sands. As big as the national park feels to you when you are standing deep into the dunes, it pales in size compared to the rest of this massive dunefield. Located to the north of the national park is the huge White Sands Missile Range. It is the site of the "Trinity" nuclear test, part of the Manhattan Project. "Trinity' was the code name of the first detonation of an implosion-design plutonium nuclear device. The complexity of the design of this new "atomic" bomb required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test at White Sands Missile Range on July 16, 1945. The rest of the story is a very grim part of our history and the history of the world. The same kind of bomb was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.

The beautiful pure white dunes of the national park in juxtaposition to the dark, harsh reality of the missile base and its history, is quite an unsettling contrast. Today, White Sands Missile Range regularly conducts missile tests. What kind we have no idea. But residents of Alamagordo hear them all the time.

Could this be the surface of the moon?

The recent discovery of human and giant sloth footprints at White Sands
National Park tell a fascinating story as depicted in these illustrations.

The sands of White Sands are forever shifting and changing shapes.

Many plants and wildlife thrive in these dunefields. Bobcat, Coyote, Kit Fox, American
Badger, Apache Pocket Mouse, Lesser Nighthawk, Burrowing Owl, Grasshopper Mouse,
Pallid Bat, Desert Cottontail Rabbit and Greater Roadrunner all live here.

Derek suggested that we take Selfies in the
different places we visit. We are happy to comply.