Spring Hare Moon
Deming, New Mexico. Yesterday had two exciting moments. The first, anticipated, found me hiking a couple of miles underground, through the natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, the one the bats use to cloud the sky each evening March through October.
Formed by carbonic and sulphuric acid eating away limestone, this ancient wonder helped me place myself, again, in the ongoing story of our planet. It’s vastness underneath the apparent solidity of the surface illustrates the hidden majesty of not only our world, but of worlds. That I was able to see it, reflect on it, be in it. Wow.
It is rich in metaphor. That same vastness underneath the apparent solidity of the surface is each human being. We are caverns and oceans and deep space inside and to few of us ever explore there.
Also, on the trail in from the natural entrance you reach a twilight zone. This is the area which still has some reflected light from the surface. Just beyond it, without the lighting installed by the Park Service, there would be only blackness.
The second piece of excitement. Unanticipated. Look at the map of Hwy. 180 between Carlsbad Caverns and El Paso, Texas. You will notice there are no towns and about 180 miles of west Texas mesquite, long horned cattle and prong-horned antelope. So you can imagine my reaction when I noticed my gas gauge. It showed 39 miles left in the tank.
I have a cold which is a nuisance for the most part, but it takes some of my attention and I’d focused on getting to Carlsbad from Seminole, Texas and just not noticed. Under normal circumstances this is no big deal. In this case though I’d already gone about 50 miles from the Caverns so there was no turning back.
The garmin didn’t show any service stations for the next 111 miles. Yikes. So, I moved to the atlas. Thanks again, Tom. There was Dell City. It was 21 miles north of 180 and the turn was about 13 miles from the location where I was trying to solve this problem. I cared a lot about how accurate all of this was.
The garmin knew the way to Dell City and reported a service station there. I headed out, knowing there was little I could do if the car’s reported mileage in the tank was off or if Dell City proved even three or four miles further than the maps indicated.
At the NAPA dealer in Dell City there were two of the sweetest pumps I’ve ever seen. I had reached Dell City with 7 miles to go according to the information on the Ford Focus fuel panel. Whew.
Off to breakfast, then on to Tucson. The workshop starts this afternoon.
