A Learning Experience
It was 7:00 am on Christmas morning 1999, when my alarm went off. Of course, excited with anticipation, I was already awake and just going over all the plans I had in mind for the days ahead. Every Christmas Day I leave on Vacation with my family. This year instead of flying away, we decided to drive.
Since we had been up late on Christmas Eve the children were tired, so I used my perfect driving skills and the soothing Christmas carols that were playing on the car radio to keep them from waking up and becoming restless. 12 noon. On the dot. The cries of: “I am hungry, I need to go to the bathroom, are we almost there, yet!,” come from the back of the car.
Well, so much for serenity. I pulled over to one of those huge gas stops that have now have restaurant chains associated with them. Everybody jumped out of the car and headed for the bathroom, but then they saw a family walking a dachshund that looked just like Alfred.
For the next 20 minutes the kids and (especially) my wife, petted and scratched this dog, choking back tears and telling the owner about our dog having to stay in a kennel and how badly he was missed. It had been one day since they had last seen him.What seemed like hours later we got back in the car and continued on our way. Next stop, Carlsbad, NM. Luckily the children and now Sandra were asleep again. As soon as we entered New Mexico, I was amazed at the amount of cattle and how near they were to the highway. I woke up the kids to show them this and asked them if they knew how a cow said moo in New Mexican. They did not know, so I said loudly to Sandra who was still asleep: “Sandra! How does a cow say moo in New Mexican?”
“Whaaat?” was her answer. Ha, ha, ha. We all laughed until Sandra caught on to my joke. “Oww!” I yelled in pain as she pinched me.
As most of you know, children stay free at Holiday Inn, which is the perfect reason for the Rohde’s to stay there. After a wonderful night of sleep we woke up early the next morning and went to Slaughter Canyon Cave. The sign at the foot of the mountain said that the hike up to the cave’s entrance would be arduous and would take 45 minutes. Forced to keep up with Victor and Assisi, we made it in 30 minutes, loping past the two National Park rangers who were to be our guides.
The cave was fantastic. The two women guides who protected us and explained the different areas of the cave could not have been nicer. We entered the Twilight Zone, going from light to total darkness in just one step. However, I was already walking in darkness since my glasses were fogged over by the heat generated from my overexertion from jogging up the hill. For the next two hours I had to constantly wipe my lenses, but, when I did, I was pleased to see some of the most unusual rock formations ever.
After we left Slaughter Canyon we went to have lunch in the Big Room, which is the largest known cave in the world. Thank god that they had an elevator that took us 700 feet down to the entrance of the cave and on to the cafeteria where we quickly ate our boxed lunch. As we walked along the pathways set up by the NPS, we were awed by the display of well placed electrical lighting and shadows that they cast around that magnificent cave. It was surreal. The unadorned forces of nature are incredible. The human need to tweak nature’s wonders, making them more beautiful, were clearly demonstrated there. It worked. Even Victor and Assisi were speechless. Until you look at these pictures offered by the NPS you will not be able to imagine the beauty of what we saw.
Thank god we had an elevator to take us back up to go ground level! By now my knees were shaking, and my back and legs were sore. As soon as we got in the car we drove towards Alamogordo. Our next stop—The White Sands Desert. While we were driving towards our destination I started feeling sick. By the time we made it to our hotel I wanted to die. That night I woke up just in time to reach the bathroom and lose my lunch. I realized at that moment that I was no longer the young, athletic father that I thought I was.
The White Sands Desert displays true testaments to the will to survive. How the native plants can live under such harsh conditions is a wonder. The dunes in this area are constantly in motion. In order for a plant to survive it must put out large, deep roots and grow faster than the sand that accumulates on each dune. The variety of plants that have been able to survive are many and varied. I tried to explain the uses and beauty of native plants to my children by pointing out their flowers and the defense systems. Even though Victor and Assisi seemed interested at first, I quickly lost their attention. They wanted to play in the sand. After a while we got back in the car and I tried to regain their attention by having them look for the desert animals. I told them that here the animals were as white as the sand and very hard to spot. “Wait! I think I see something over there,” I shouted, pointing wildly in every direction and weaving just a wee bit off the road.
Victor then asked me if I knew that the police car behind us just turned on his lights. I pulled over. The US Park police officer asked me to step out of the car and courteously wondered if I would mind performing a few tests. My first test was to blow in his face so that he could smell my breath. He asked me to do that twice. He then asked if he could inspect my car. When he looked in the car he immediately saw my opened container of Chewable Pepto Bismol and asked me if I was feeling all right. I explained about my possible overexertion from the hike and/or food poisoning during the last 24 hours. He reminded me to drink plenty of clear fluids and to please drive safely. As he said good-bye I was pleased to know that the parks are protected by officers who are so pleasant.
Now we were heading to Salinas, which was an old Spanish Mission until the 1600s. The Spanish priests came to New Mexico in the Salinas area in the 17th century. Their main motives were to increase the wealth of Spain and to bring their teachings in the Christian faith to the inhabitants of the area. Later, many Pueblo villages and missions in the area were abandoned due to a double whammy of severe droughts and frequent raids by other Indian tribes. I was trying to explain that Pueblo Indians lived in apartment-like complexes in the Salinas Valley and were able to survive in an agricultural society and make their area a major trade center of the Pueblo world.
My kids did not want to go to a church on Monday. They expected the mission to be fully operational and staffed by zealous priests.
Once we arrived at the ruins of this mission, the kids were amazed by the old structure that had stood on that mountain side for hundreds of years. I was surprised to find kivas next to the church. Kivas were underground rooms where the Pueblo men performed duties and held secret ceremonies out of sight of women and visitors. Some of the duties were weaving and pottery making, activities they were embarrassed to be seen doing. Those who entered the kivas without permission were usually killed on the spot. After hearing this, Victor really enjoyed the kivas. He started making plans to build one in our back yard so that he could have his privacy, something he says he needs, but never gets.
In Albuquerque we went to the Old Town Area, visited the Mission and let the girls do some shopping. Very boring. Victor and I wanted to go and see more ruins.
Chaco Canyon. The drive there was interesting, to say the least. Most of the travel time was spent on dirt roads and, of course, my helpful wife was telling me to slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down……. Two hours later we got there. Man, it was worth it! The apartment-like dwellings were made out of pieces of stone about the size of a sandwich. The time and patience it must have taken those people to construct those perfectly straight walls for the dwellings and the even more perfectly round kivas is incredible. The Chaco Canyon complex becomes even more breathtaking when you climb the 200 or so feet to the mesa above the canyon and see the structure from above. Victor Peck from the Dallas Zoo recommended that I go to Chaco Canyon and I am grateful that I took his advice.
We got really lucky and arrived at the Painted Desert early in the morning and stayed long enough to see the sun travel upward in the sky and change the colors of the stone formations and the sands around it. In the park they have set up viewing areas that in some cases are not even miles apart. But even traveling short distances makes the scenery and the colors completely different. The air that you breath is so pure that we were able to see the San Fernando Mountains hundreds of miles away.
Following the same road from the Painted Desert we went on to the Petrified Forest. On the way we stopped and saw some petrogliphs and were doubly rewarded by seeing wildlife that appeared out of a rock formation. First a rabbit appeared, then came Sandra’s favorite, a little mouse. Soon we saw a chipmunk-like rodent and then, to my amazement, a horny toad. We stayed and watched these animals for thirty minutes until they caught the attention of some squealing kids who ran us off.
I was really disappointed with the Petrified Forest. I expected to see thousands of trees and all I saw was thousands of pieces of small chunks of stumps, left over from the dynamited trees that were destroyed by the thousand’s of souvenir seekers who had ransacked the forest in the late 1800’s. As we traveled west towards the Grand Canyon, Assisi insisted on going to the Meteor Crater. We were all fascinated by the size of the hole created upon the impact of this meteor that was only 150 feet across. They found debris from the explosion two miles away. I sure would hate to have been standing around that area when that event took place.
We arrived in Williams, AZ on the 30th and decided to take an airplane tour of the Grand Canyon. Poor Assisi had to sit in the very back seat of the airplane all by herself while Victor rode as copilot. I took the same flight over 20 years ago and did not think that I would be that excited by this flight. Was I wrong! I could not keep my eyes open wide enough. Assisi just stared out the window, her mouth wide open as well. (We found out later it was because she was gasping for air. There was a lack of fresh air).
The view was unbelievably pretty. Millions of years in its formation and the canyon is not finished yet. Sandra and Assisi were feeling nauseous after the flight, so I was able to afford to go with Victor on the helicopter tour. Again with Victor as the copilot we took a different route and actually flew under the rim as we headed on a gentle climb up to the Northern Rim. We still could not get enough of this magnificent wonder of the world so we went to the Omni Theater. Wow! What a magnificent movie. I could have seen it over and over again, but we ran out of money. Our budget once again was blown and we still had three days left on our vacation.
On the 31st we boarded a train in Williams and headed back to the Grand Canyon. On the way we saw deer and antelope (and watched them play) and some beautiful scenery. As soon as we got off the train we went to our hotel room, left our luggage and jumped on the bus just in time for the Tower Tour. With blue skies and the temperature hovering near 50 degrees, we could not get enough. I do not know how many times I have said and will say that. The beauty at each turn of the road, the changing rock formations and dazzling colors took our breaths away. Then, at our first stop…..
Victor ran to the ledge and, after making sure that all of us saw him, he jumped. One lady screamed and I ran over to see where he had gone. My son was laying on his back three feet below the ledge he had jumped from, trying his best to restrain his laughter. Once he saw me, he just could not stop laughing. You got to love him. Like father, like son. As we all tried to forget about Victor’s suicide attempt, we focused once again on the panorama in front of us and the shining ribbon of the Colorado River snaking it’s way through the Canyon.
Sandra screamed, “Puppy!”. Another dachshund. This creature was huge. It’s name was Peanuts, but there was nothing peanuty about this dog. It was just huge. The owner said that it weighed 38 pounds, and had not been carried in the last two years. Peanuts weighed way to much to lift. My kids and my wife forgot where we were. This dog stole the thunder from the roaring river far below. By the time the bus was about to leave for our next stop the kids were still petting Peanuts.
When we got to the Tower we discovered it was a stone construction where you paid a fee to climb up the 425 steps to the third level making sure that you were now hungry and certain to eat at the cafeteria, where hamburgers were three dollars each. But, having ran out of money, I told the kids that they could use their coupon to get a free soda and that we could go to dinner early that night. Ha! It’s great to be me. Sometimes it pays to be cheap. As Victor begged and pleaded for food, the cashier asked if we would like some free burgers. The cafeteria was about to close up and they had excess food. We each grabbed a hamburger and sat back down to eat, when, I swear, about 20 to 30 people walked in and, yes, so many people ordered hamburgers that they had to cook some more. Of course, they were charged for theirs.
Back at the hotel the kids wanted to watch MTV until it was time to go to dinner. Sandra and I walked to the rim to see the sunset. It was beautiful. I was mesmerized by the magnificent sunset and Sandra’s smile. She too appreciated Natures beauty as it painted a masterpiece in front of us. Around midnight we all bundled up and walked the 300 yards to the rim where we planned to usher in the New Year. I was really disappointed because the sky had become cloudy and we could not see one star. All I could do was complain about how overcast it was. I had wanted to look for a shooting star.
It was five minutes before midnight when Victor, told me to look up. To my surprise the skies had cleared and you could not count the shining stars. It was like popcorn in a bucket. It was the prettiest collection of stars I had seen since the time I was in Fiji. At the stroke of midnight my family gave me one big hug and to my heart’s delight thanked me for a wonderful trip and hoped that we would spend many more New Years together.
When we walked back to our room the skies became cloudy and I never saw my shooting star. But, it really did not matter. I had what I wanted, a beautiful trip with my family. One that would be remembered for a long time.
You might think that this story is over, but it is not. As marveled as I was by all the beauty that I had seen during the last week, it was topped by the six inches of snow that fell during the night. We walked back to the rim to see the new look of the Grand Canyon and were delighted to have gotten two views for the price of one.
Now, I am back in Dallas wondering if my kids really enjoyed the trip. When I asked Assisi what she thought of our trip, she told me that even though we had been to New York, Washington D.C., Germany, Austria and France, this trip was way cool. She told me that she learned a lot on this trip and was surprised to see female forest rangers and airplane pilots. She said that this nature tour that we went on really had more to offer than cities with buildings and man-made landscapes like Central Park, Disney World and the grounds at Versailles in France. She was amazed at the tough plants that survived on the mountainside and surprised that we had some of those at Rohde’s, like the Agarita and several of the sage varieties that we saw in the desert. One of her friends told me that Assisi talked about the trip for several days and how they plan to repeat this trip the summer that they graduate from high school.
Victor and I have already talked about going back to Chaco Canyon and with our bicycles so that we can take the bike trail that is supposed to be over 100 miles long.
I am embarrassed, almost, that for the last 10 years I have always tried to take my kids on vacations to cosmopolitan cities, and had forgotten to show my children nature’s beautiful offerings. I want to show them what civilization was like 200, 600, or even 2000 years ago, and how lucky we are now (?) to live in an age where we can enjoy both nature and the advancements of men when we travel around the United States and the world in mechanical comforts and not in wagons with wooden wheels that carried the brave pioneers into the west.
At the end of my January Newsletter I said that I would never take another road trip again. I was wrong. The number of beautiful things we saw, the history that the children experienced in such a short time can be visible in other areas of the United States. To finish in a corny way, I ask you to sing with me: “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…”