We all have ideas about our parents from before we were born. A few of my ideas come from stories their friends and siblings tell but mostly they come from the photo albums on the bookshelves of my childhood home. From the albums, I have always known my parents love driving in the western United States (they and I grew up in the East). So when my dad asked when and where they might join us, this seemed pretty obvious.
So it was that on Tuesday, September 8th, after driving about 3 hours from Fort Stockton, Texas, we arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and found my parents standing next to their rental car and waving. The kids screamed louder than the last time I cancelled dessert.
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| El Capitain marks the highest point in Texas and the signature feature of Guadalupe Mountains National Park |
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| The girls and a Madrone (tree) |
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| Ali and Cate bonding with a park ranger |
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| Matching animal tracks was part of earning the junior ranger badge at GMNP |
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| Junior Ranger Success! |
The rest of the day was quite fun. We did the junior ranger program at GMNP, which was a very focused on geology and ecology, especially species identification. Then we drove up the road about an hour, into New Mexico and onto Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Here we achieved another junior ranger program. We grilled up burgers and dogs in the visitor center parking lot and then walked over to take in the nightly Bat Flight Ranger Program.
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| Rain! |
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| In the caverns at Carlsbad NP |
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| Cate in a Cavern |
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| This is the cavern that is occupied by hundreds of thousands of bats (before the picture ban took effect) |
I have nothing to show for this because cameras and all electronics are banned because of the effect they have on the bats' navigation. Fortunately, there are professional pictures and videos and also Google.
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| Somebody else's picture of bats at Carlsbad |
It's pretty awesome. Several hundred people are in the amphitheater and they were surprisingly obedient. I could close my eyes and hear the sound of hundreds of bat wings beating overhead. The ranger said there are possibly 300-500,000 bats in the cave, depending on the season and other factors. We were there (early October) near the end of the season before the bats migrate south for the winter.
Our friends from Portland would recognize this as the opposite of the Vaux Swifts. Imagine, instead of clouds of birds suddenly swarming
into the chimney at Chapman Elementary that a much larger number just as suddenly emerged.
Henry, more than his siblings, was amazed by this. It's the kind of experience that he (and maybe they) will remember without the help of pictures and videos, which is good because we have none of our own. The kids had a terrific day being junior naturalists at these two national parks and, if any of them grow up to become scientists of any sort, I think we'll point to moments like this and take full credit for their otherwise independent decisions.
The day ended with adjoining hotel rooms and four very happy (and tired) grandchildren loving all over their grandparents. We have a week of this ahead, with visits to Santa Fe, Monte Verde and the Grand Canyon. More soon.
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