Continuing the Green Christmas, a Tradition in the Making

This year’s Christmas was in two parts…. part one was December in Carlsbad where I got to meet M’s family and spend the holiday with them. I wrapped most of my presents in plain recycled paper or in reusable gift bags. Since I was with a new family that may or may not get my “green Christmas” style, I chose to keep it pretty tame.

The second Christmas was this last week in Houston, where M got to meet my family. Again, my presents were wrapped in reusable bags, but a few were wrapped last minute in regular wrapping paper. My mom, however, went all out. The following are images of the cool stuff she created. Kudos to her ingenuity!

Wrapped in old state road maps…. I would have NEVER thought of this. Awesome! Also note the ribbon…. VHS tape makes awesome ribbon.

2 gifts were wrapped in kitchen dishtowels. I love dish towels for daily use instead of paper napkins. This is a gift wrapped within another gift. Tied with old stretched-out hair ties.

all those sales circulars that you can’t opt out of come in handy when wrapping – especially if you make the wrapping a hint… I got yoga pants out of this box. 🙂 Also, note more VHS ribbon.

Cute and applicable cartoon used as nametag

awesome VHS ribbon bow

I did do one last-minute green wrapping job…

for those awkward or large presents…. a big black trashbag and reusable bow. We used the bag to collect trash later that day.

Happy 2013!!!! For previous Green Christmas entries….
I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas, part 1

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas, part 2

Christmas, Green-Style

Reluctantly I Headed to D.C. (And Had a Pretty Good Time!)

Last week I had to take a trip to Washington DC for work. I LOVE traveling, but traveling for work isn’t nearly as fun. I wasn’t really looking forward to the trip – on top of having a cold, I was going to be engaging in ‘team building’ with 40 strangers. Ick!

At the El Paso airport, I discovered that TSA is doing extra-special 2nd base checks… The TSA lady ran her hands down my sternum and around my ribcage, multiple times. I boarded my tiny puddle-jumper to Denver to enjoy having the whole row to myself. So I took advantage of the No Seat Belt sign and gorgeous day and took lots of photos (with my cell phone so the pics are crappy).

We flew along the Permian Reed, with El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak out my window. I waved down to my boyfriend as we passed Carlsbad. Northern New Mexico is pretty cool to see from the sky. Its all desert plains and huge mountainous patches of black rock left, remnants of 10,000 year old lava flows. (geology nerds rock!) 

To the west, the Sandias and Jimez mountains were capped with snow. My first snow of the season!

Wow! Southeastern Colorado is boring! I was hoping to see Great Sand Dunes National Park but no, just flat, brown, agricultural fields.

The front range of the Rocky Mountains is pretty amazing to see. Just imagine those poor pioneers, after thousands of boring flat miles of Kansas and Missouri, to be hit with this site. Little did they know the landscape would be rocky and mountainous all the was to the Pacific. Awesome!

Even the Denver airport has some snow-capped peaks.:-)

Inside the airport I encountered some local wildlife…. a flock of sparrows flying around the terminal eating crumbs off the empty seats. Once on the completely packed plane, I discovered more wildlife…. our pilot had a very strong, very cliche New Jersey accent. Just what I need, the Jersey Shore cast piloting my jet across the country.

 

At Dulles I was surprised to find some super-helpful airport workers (take notice, Houston Intercontinental bitches!). I thought they were extinct! A very nice eastern African traffic director noticed I was lost and pointed me in the right direction, even stopped traffic so that I could get across. Then a west African shuttle driver helped me find which bus I needed to get to my hotel. It was 11pm and I’d been traveling for 12 hours. My brain was fried.

The next two hours consisted on a random midnight tour of Georgetown, where all I could think about was The Exorcist, and cleaning all of my ‘fancy office clothes’ in the hotel sink. My shampoo exploded and the freezer bag I had packed it in was open.

This is only the 1st day and I’m already exhausted. Seriously not looking forward to this trip.

The rest of the week was a blur of meeting rooms, new faces, and Team Dimension profiles. However, we got a lot of sight-seeing done too!

The White House!

Washington Monument, cracked and broken so nobody can go inside

The Navy Memorial Museum – where they were practicing for a Pearl Harbor memorial event

Very cool statue at the Navy Memorial Museum reminded me of my grandfather

Ford’s Theater – the box where Lincoln was assassinated

From the top of the Old Post Office tower – Looking up Pennsylvania Ave towards Capitol Hill

Christmas Tree Concert at the White House

Oh yeah, we also got free tickets to the White House Christmas Tree Celebration – it was freezing, I’m not into crowds, and I STILL had a cold – but I went nonetheless. When the Deputy Director of the National Park Service gives you free tickets to a White House event, you go.

It was a star-studded concert, with Neil Patrick Harris hosting, and the Obamas reading The Night Before Christmas to us all

It was an awesome evening!

 

 

Things I learned from my trip to DC?

1. City life is fun but ultimately not for me. All that walking and concrete and traffic and noise? Ugh!

If you have enough money, you can afford your own tiny spot of nature, on a roof

2. When standing with 8000 strangers in front of the White House, no amount of bandwidth will allow you to access Facebook to brag or text photos of Phillip Phillips to your best friend (who LOVES him). So I’ll post a quick video here 🙂

Yes… that’s me screaming throughout the video.
(try my YouTube page if you can’t get the video to play here)

3. Getting kicked out of your meeting space because the President of the United States (or POTUS) needs to talk to 150 leaders of Native American tribes is pretty cool.

4. Introducing non-city people to Tapas is both interesting and amusing

5. Room service and a bubble bath make for a damned good evening

6. The Secret Service have traffic stops down pat! They can get VP Biden from his house in Georgetown to the White House with only minimal disruption to us commuters. ps – they will wave at you if you wave at them (not the snipers, never wave at snipers)

7. Even a reluctant work trip can have some pretty awesome adventures attached.

Flying over snow-capped Rockies is gorgeous!

Taking My Life in My Own Hands (on the Camino Del Diablo)

Camino del Diablo translates to Road of the Devil.

Doesn’t sound too appealing… unless you like to 4-wheel drive or you live along the US-Mexico border. Well, I was living in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in a house only 4 miles north of the border and this road , or camino, was legendary.

This road was first made famous by Spanish soldier Melchior Diaz and Padre Kino in the 1500s. These Spaniards followed the road made by prehistoric Hohokam people and historic Tohono O’odham people. It was considered the only way to cross the driest part of the southwestern desert due to large tinajas (earthen bowls filled with water) that could be found in the mountains. During the gold rush of the 1840s, many men died along this route trying to get to California. This ancient road is literally lined with the graves of adventurers passed.

Now do you understand why this road got its name? Let me tell you about the two times I crossed it and hiked into its wild mountains.

When I first decided to drive the road, I knew I needed a companion… preferably one with a gun and the ability to use it. Seriously the only time I’ve EVER felt this way while traveling. My friend Leo was my first choice. He’s a lot of fun to hang with, great experience in the desert, a federal law enforcement officer (federal LEO, hence the name I’ve given him), and has a Spot personal locator beacon.

Such a good book!

Leo and I began looking into the road. We found out that we needed a free permit from the local bombing range (you know, just in case they decided to bomb the day we were driving by. no worries here!). We also started reading random books written about the area to learn about the regional history. I chose “The Devil’s Highway”, an aptly named book about immigrants walking across the Arizona desert and the tragedy that ensued. Basically this book taught me all I never wanted to know about dying of thirst in the desert.

Needless to say, we packed some extra water, snacks, left notes for everyone telling them where we were and when we hoped to return, gassed up, got our “don’t bomb us” permit, and took off!

The road starts out just south of town as a very nice dirt road. I’ve seen octogenarians in sedans driving it while bird-watching. It gets a little bumpy as it travels into Organ Pipe and passes Bates Well, an old ranching homestead.

not a lot left of the ranch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Due to the water resources that undoubtedly brought the Bates Well ranchers to the area, it is also a great place for illegals crossing the desert. So, this is the first place we will see evidence of Border Patrol. These 3 metals boxes, which must feel like ovens in the 120 degree summer, are housing units for the BP and are probably mostly used during marijuana  crop season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My second trip down CdD, I ran into these BP guys…. got stuck behind them for several miles before they pulled over and let me by. The CdD is a two-way one-lane road. Passing is tough and meeting on-coming traffic is tougher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the road exits the park and heads west, it gets pretty sandy so someone, I’m assuming BP, put down metal runners. These are slippery and loud and interesting to drive on. They only run for a few miles.

Seriously wanted to slam on my brakes at a high speed to see how far we would skid…

A lot of the drive was spent watching for graves on the side of the road – we saw a few but didn’t get photos. Not gonna lie – a lot of the drive was spent watching the south side of the road for humans hiding in the bushes or running across the desert. We never saw anyone suspicious. We did, however, see this….

the astroturf is a nice touch… we know you’re scared and dying of thirst and possibly heatstroke or tuberculosis, but here is some astroturf to remind you of civilization.

This is one of several beacons that save lives. Written in English, Spanish, and Tohono O’odham, instructions state that by pushing the button, help will arrive within one hour and you should stay in place. The button not only sends signal to the nearest Border Patrol outpost but it also lights up a flashing beacon for anyone to see.

There is a large BP outpost set up out there along the way. Its not at all inviting but it did ease my mind as Leo and I drove by it. We had been traveling on hard packed dirt but up ahead was a very large valley, and valleys mean one thing: Sand. Sand is not a 4-wheeler’s friend. I wanted to stop and have Leo drive but he refused, saying I needed to drive to prove to myself that I could do it. (Later he admitted that he didn’t want to get us stuck and then have all of his LEO co-workers find out. So there! Now they all know. 🙂  )

Not only was there sand, but the road was so entrenched that I was grateful for all 10 inches of clearance my Xterra provided us. Imagine being forced, at 30mph, to choose one of several paths, all the while knowing that you’d be stuck with the path chosen no matter what because your vehicle literally wouldn’t be able to get out of it. That’s exactly what happened; only oh wait! Don’t forget the sand – powder-fine sand was billowing up all around the car so much that I had to turn on my windshield wipers. (Yes, I have indeed used windshield wipers in one of the driest places in north america – for sand, not water.) The wipers only marginally helped but never fear, the horrid trenched road kept us on path – remember those old timey model T cars at AstroWorld that straddled an iron bar, bouncing you back onto the path every time you tried to steer away? Yeah, same theory here. So here we are, driving blind at 30 mph in a trench filled with powder-fine sand, when it dawned on me that this is a two-way road and anyone coming directly at us would be in exactly the same predicament we were in. The constant scare of a head-on collision really did wonders for my other nagging concern for traversing the Camino in the first place. Thanks!

Of course Leo and I survived the trenches… and continued onto the flats. A lot of flats…

Eventually we hit the next series of mountains (the Camino crosses through a series of Basin and Range-style mountain ranges. This is where the water is and this is what made the desert cross-able ) The next mountain pass was pretty cool. There was a  primitive campground and a few small buildings. I guess one was a house or small store or something. Whatever, it was shade! We stopped in to take a look around. Someone a while back had stashed a composition notebook in there and all Camino-crossers had signed it. As I sat there and read all the entries over the last few years, I recognized a few names and had a few laughs. I was reminded of the notebooks left in huts all along the Appalachian Trail. Those are filled with some good reading!

The road splits around a few of the mountains several times, is filled with lots of dead-ends, and lots of beckoning places. Leo and I chose to take a side-road south, for reasons I can’t remember. We traveled a pretty route between two mountains that was twisty-turny, steep-walled, and had been described in a book as ‘a great place for banditos to hide and hijack a vehicle’. Awesome and I definitely agree. I was very uncomfortable with the idea of parking and walking away from the car in search of petroglyphs. The last thing we needed was to lose our vehicle in the middle of desert nowhere! Once we were out of Tinajas Altas Pass, we were soon stopped by BP. (It wouldn’t be the last time we took a road less traveled and were stopped by BP. More on that another time.) It was nice to see someone along that section of road because we weren’t exactly sure where we were. He pointed us up a road that led through another pass and back to the main route.

The road became very wide and flat, and we ran across a military training – I don’t know what branch or what you call a group of military people because I simply don’t care. Here was an encampment, training and exercising along the Camino. It was pretty disconcerting to see tanks and military weapons moving around out here in the beautiful wilderness. We were approaching Yuma so I’m guessing they come out of there to strafe and train and whatnot. The road soon dumped us unceremoniously out onto the highway and back into civilization. Our 13-hour trek along the Camino had come to an end. Its so odd to think that just miles south of Interstate 8 where people are whizzing by on their way to the Pacific Ocean, there is a whole other world waiting to be explored. (and it took more than a month for all of the powder sand to disappear from my vehicle.)

On a Camino trip the following year, my friend S and I went in search of Tinajas Altas – an infamous canyon filled with water, petroglyphs, and probably illegals. Past the mind-numbing flats, the powder sands, the campground… We knew how to sniff out rock art – go into the desert and find water… not so tough!

Looking north out of Tinajas Altas Canyon

We found Tinajas Altas, climbed up into it a bit but didn’t want to get stuck like so many unfortunate animals have done. We spent a few hours looking around for petroglyphs, found a few but not the main ones we were hoping to see.

S standing lower left, climbing up around the canyons

All in all, both Camino trips were packed with adventure and wilderness. I draw happiness from knowing that there are still wild and dangerous places out there in the U.S., places to still head out into the unknown.

Happy Thanksgiving (although I confess this has historically been one of my least favorite holidays)

Today I am thankful for the long hard road that has led me to my first completely compassionate Thanksgiving Day. I am thankful for my friends and family who may not always agree or understand but are supportive nonetheless. I am thankful for a fantastic boyfriend who loves me as much for our differences as for our similarities. I am thankful for the Vegetarian Society of El Paso, a group of people who I never expected to meet and never expected to have such an impact in my life.

There are many other things in this world I’m thankful for, like sunlight soaking into my skin or the smell of the air in a pine forest or for my grandma Joy and all her undying support of me throughout my life. But, for today, I’ll stick with the short list above. The rest are just for me.

The Kritzler clan of Texas, Ohio, and a bit of Canada (c. 2009)

The Hines clan of Texas and Iowa (c.2006)

What are you thankful for today? (Please don’t say Black Friday Sales or I will Punch You in Your Throat!)

Devil’s Hall with the boys

This last weekend I headed out to Guadalupe Mountains National Park with M and his boys for a Veteran’s Day hike. Guadalupe contains the highest peak in Texas as well as some world-renown geological specimens from the Permian Era. In the fall, people migrate there in droves to see the only fall colors around this region. Most people head to the more famous McKittrick Canyon but we were hitting M’s favorite place – Devil’s Hall.

Last week a local newscast aired an interview on location they did with M in Devil’s Hall and since then the place has had more El Pasoan foot traffic than ever before! So I guess mass media really does still work.

I have done this hike many years ago but I barely remember it and half of hiking is the company you keep, so this trip would be fun.

The forecast was a bit dismal for my south Texan bones… windy (50mph) and cold (high of 50). I dressed as warmly as I could, brought extra stuff for the kids in case they’re as wimpy as I am, and still froze my ass off. Even with the hiking, I was cold. (blood flows to muscle, leaving fatty tissue to stay cold…. read: my ass, my thighs)

We started hiking after lunch so that the weather was a bit warmer. However, we were hiking in a canyon so we also had no sun…. brrrr! Thank you weather gods for the absence of wind. The Guads are known for their incredible wind storms.

The hike started off sunny…

However, we were headed into a canyon and would soon lose our light and solar-warmth

We did see lots of great fall color. This isn’t New England fall color but when one or two trees are brilliant red and surrounded by white rock, it really stands out. Most of the time I couldn’t photograph the color due to the shadowy canyon light.

Bright red big-toothed maples were everywhere

Texas Madrone berries added great color, but taste awful!

White is a color…. There were several yuccas blooming along the trail. They bring in the bats and moths. Yay!

There were other kinds of color too – brilliant purple colored all the rocks from Ringtail urine – probably purple from eating berries

After a bit of trail hiking, in which the boys took turns looking for cougars with binoculars and spilling water on their shirts, we headed into a rocky wash to hike for a mile to Devil’s Hall. This is what we like to call “kid nirvana”….

Jumbly awesome rocks to climb on!

And climb them, they did!

At one point, in the narrow rock-strewn canyon, I heard rustling in the bushes high overhead. I shushed the boys (have you ever tried to shush 10 year olds? its not an easy task) so we wouldn’t scare off whatever animal was up there. Turned out to be a deer family of 4 eating an afternoon meal. They stared at us; we stared at them. Once the boys had a good look at the deer in their natural habitat, we were off for more rock climbing.

Towards the end of the hike, the trail goes up what’s known as Devil’s Stairs. These are fun but the odd way they tilt create a dizzying optical illusion.

One runs to the Devil’s Stairs while the other surveys the path

Posing for photos for dad

After the Devil’s Stairs, the canyon narrows even more. M and I walked in front of the boys, allowing them time to be alone with nature, and time for us to jump out and scare them from behind our hiding places.  🙂

Also gave us time to pose for our own pictures

The canyon narrows down to almost a slot canyon…. if we were on the Colorado Plateau we’d call it a “slot canyon” but we aren’t so we call it “Devil’s Hall”!

M enjoying geology and fall colors at the mouth of Devil’s Hall

Devil’s Hall is the end of the trail. I guess you could bushwhack up a few more yards but not with kids… Another day perhaps. So we turned around and headed back out. We saw the deer in the same spot as where we left them. I even found the boys’ lost binoculars in the same spot they left them… All in all, a good day out in the wilderness, a good 4 miles of fall color, a good time!

Traveling Ancient Roads in New Mexico (or Our Urination Vacation) Part 3: Heading Home and Looking Back

One of the coolest things about Chaco Culture National Historic Site is that you can enter a few of the sites and walk around at your leisure. Many sites with ancient dwellings have rules that you can look but you can’t touch. At Chaco, a few of the sites have become the sacrificial sites that visitors can enter and touch and learn from.

Enter if you want… unless you see this sign

So later in the afternoon, once we’d had lunch and recovered from our 6-mile morning hike, we toured Pueblo Bonito. This one is huge and you can walk through all of it! I think we counted 27 kivas – Kivas are circular underground ceremonial meeting spaces. Most of them are small, holding 10 people or so. Chaco’s Great Houses boast the biggest kivas I’ve ever seen, big enough to hold 60+ people. Its like little league fields vs. NFL fields.

Large kiva at Chetro Ketl – those large circular holes in the ground held ponderosa pine trunks which held the roof up.

The National Park Service has worked pretty hard to maintain these Great Houses, sometimes rebuilding parts of them for our education, and sometimes keeping them unexcavated until future archaeological techniques are perfected. However, some of the maintenance we saw on the Great Houses were pretty funny…

a rain gutter?! Those Chacoans really were advanced!

support beams holding up an unprecedented 3-story 1,000 year old wall

Perspective…. the ancient Chacoans were shorter than my 5ft, 9in self but this was pretty short! It is possible that they kept doorways short to keep warmer air from escaping in the cold winter months. – M’s photo

M checking out the one room that remains dark to maintain original murals painted on the wall.

Personally, I love petroglyphs and pictographs – rock art to the layperson. More than just graffiti, rock art panels are the enduring words carved by our ancestors, by the caretakers of many of the places that are now part of the National Park Service. I am drawn to them like Homer Simpson to donuts and beer. I photograph every thing I see, catalogue what I can, and listen to what they tell me.

M’s photo: petroglyphs are pecked into rock, like this swirl above

We found rock art next to almost every single Great House we came across. Most of the art is well known to visitors of the site but I still got a thrill each time I came across some. Its like reading a book – the book has been read by others but you still read it and take away your own meaning.

The canyon itself, Chaco Canyon, had 10+ Great Houses within it’s 1,000 foot rock walls. Chaco Wash runs through the middle of it and this may have played a major role in why this area was chosen for such construction.

Looking down on newer smaller Great House from the top of the canyon

The canyon served as a crossroads for travelers from the four far-flung corners of the world. To the southwest there were openings heading to Monument Valley, to the northeast the great Chaco Road headed towards the ponderosa-covered mountains of northern New Mexico and Colorado.

M’s photo – the famous Fajada Butte stands at the entrance to Chaco Canyon, welcoming travelers for the last 1,000 years.

The canyon still serves as a crossroads of culture. People from all over the world, for all types of reasons, come to Chaco. Some are searching for answers to one of North America’s mysteries (where did the Ancestral Puebloans go?), some come for a love of the southwest, and some simply come because they want to check off Chaco on their National Parks Passport book. Whatever the reason, we all leave with the same thing: more questions than answers. Isn’t that what travel is really all about?

Never Stop Exploring

Traveling Ancient Roads in New Mexico (or Our Urination Vacation) Part 2: All Roads Lead to Chaco Canyon

Besides finding the perfect book on rock art at Chaco Culture National Historic Site, M and I were blessed with the most random animal sightings on this trip. While walking to the breakfasty-awesomeness that is the Happy Belly Deli, we heard the craziest squawking in the air.

just barely visible from upper left diagonally down to lower right…. hundreds of geese flying south for winter

The drive from TorC to Chaco was long, but interesting. Lots of music was listened to, lots of places found on the map, a quick detour into Albuquerque for Indian food, and discussion of the new spaceport in New Mexico.

My view for the whole ride… looking good, M!

As we entered the park (after a long and washboarded road off the highway), we saw a sign for elk. I made some smart-ass comment about always seeing Watch for Animal signs but never seeing the animals. Just as the words left my mouth, I spotted not 1, not 2, but 7 elk about 60 yards away! Big tall antlered males and cow-looking females. I’m pretty sure M got to hear me say in my most baby-talk voice how I loved the cute little elk (and to his credit, he still loves me). Ok, so I did get a photo of the 7 cute little big-antlered elk but it looks like every other tourists’ animal photos; the kind where you show people and have to back it up with “see? right there? I swear that brown bump is an elk butt!”

After hitting the visitor center for our park passport stamps, we found the perfect campsite and set up shop. I’m typically a low-key car camper or backpacker…. tiny stove, tiny tent, no pillow. M is a bit more luxurious. We packed my feather bed, two big sleeping pads, several pillows, Coleman two-burner stove, and awesome food. We were set to hit the loop road that takes visitors by 8+ great houses that are about 1,000 years old.

Our sweet-ass campsite set-up – M’s photo

 

Exuding excitement! Seriously, I was in nerdy archaeology and photography heaven! (M’s photo)

I quickly discovered that I was traveling with Ansel Adams….

M’s photo – the clouds rock!

M’s photo – but the blue sky rocks hard too!

M’s photo – Checking out 1,000 year-old masonry work as the sun goes down

We made it to two Great Houses, walking all around and photo-documenting every inch, before we lost the sun and had to head back to camp. Once the sun went down, my southern-ass began to freeze. I had 3 layers, gloves and a hat, and STILL was cold! We had forgotten firewood so there was no fire to keep warm by. We ate a quick meal and hit the tent, snuggling down in our sleeping bags.

In the middle of the night, I was pulled from sleep by an odd sound that I hadn’t heard in years…. Coyotes! Click here for random video of coyote sounds. (Lennox was very interested in my computer as it suddenly began speaking coyote to him). Coyotes are such a wonderful part of any desert camping experience. I can’t believe that in Texas people hunt them for sport and the state kills them as nuisance wildlife.

Another amazing thing about camping at Chaco? The un-freaking-believable night sky! I got up to pee in the middle of the night. Stepping outside the tent, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks. I swear I reached up to try and touch the stars, they were so bright and so close!

[Totally dorky side note: most of Chaco’s Great Houses were built in relation to the stars and the movements of the sun. If my night sky were this gorgeous, I would do the same!]

A not-so-amazing thing about camping at Chaco? At some point in the night, M heard something walking through our campsite. He says it sounded like human footsteps and there was a trail connecting several tent sites together. That’s normal and a totally cool camping thing… but me finding a large puddle of urine not 10 yards from our tent and M realizing that it was the guy he heard walking in the middle of the night? not cool. I’m hoping that the dude was simply walking down the trail away from his tent and found a great bush to relieve himself by, not realizing that he was actually in our tent site.

Anyone who has ever camped knows how horribly cold it is in the morning when your need for coffee (or a toilet) overrides your need to stay in your warm bag. Anyone who’s camped with me knows that I will bargain almost anything for YOU to make the coffee and let me stay in my bag.

making my own coffee… M’s photo

The good thing about the desert is it’ll warm up quickly once the sun rises. We had breakfast and hit the trail – Pueblo Alto Trail leading up out of the canyon onto the plateau and offering great views!

M’s photo – me climbing up a crack in the rock wall to get up out of the canyon and onto the plateau

Fantastic snacktime view of Pueblo Bonito, the most visited site at Chaco

M getting his own shots of Pueblo Bonito – love the brilliant yellow cottonwoods lining the creek down below!

Continuing the trail along the edge of the canyon, we passed over one of the many ancient roads leading out of the canyon to the north.

Chaco Road steps carved into the cliff edge carried millions of humans and tons of trade-goods to present-day Colorado and Utah – M’s photo

Our trail was a bit smaller, and the steps were a bit rougher. The upside is that I love my ass in this photo… it looks pretty good!

ok, stop looking at my ass

Goofing around on the trail – definitely a great part of hiking! Learning to use the continuous shutter on my camera makes it even better!

 

black-on-white pottery sherd… holding a 1,000 year old lithic leftover in my hand

Somewhere along the trail, my spidey-senses began tingling and I spotted this! After examining it, we hid it under a rock right where we found it. [Never take artifacts back to the rangers. Leave it where you found it, in situ, for nature to reclaim or another hiker to ‘discover’.]

A ways on down the trail, still along the cliff edge, we came across another Great House down below. As I stood there focusing my lens to get a birds-eye shot, I realized that one of the NPS masonry workers was PEEING. He had his back to the wall, which meant he was facing me, and after furtive glances to the left and the right, let loose. Even with my awesome zoom lens, I couldn’t spot his little manhood (thankyoubabyjesus). The best part of it was after he zipped up, he happened to look up my way. So I waved….

After 6 miles up on the plateau, we made our way down the rock crack back to our car.

Sorry mom but I have to post all afraid-of-heights photos. Down below is another Great House, and just up the road is our car. – M’s photo

We headed to the visitor center to watch the park’s video, play with some antelope ground squirrels, and then back to camp to make dinner. We had an amazing dinner – brown rice with bell peppers, mushrooms, and broccoli. Definitely better than my pbj that I usually eat while camping.

The chef and his work space

Oh! and while we were making dinner, I spotted our other neighbor (not Midnight Pee Man) with his back to the parking lot and the rest of the tent sites, PEEING onto a bush behind his tent. Men have no shame! (For those of you counting, this makes the 3rd man in two days to whip it out in the wild and urinate in my vicinity)

See you in Part 3 when we’ll conclude our Chaco adventure and take a look back at things we learned… besides the fact that men will pee whenever, wherever. Whatever….

Traveling Ancient Roads in New Mexico (or Our Urination Vacation) Part 1: Classic 1950s Chic

As much as I’ve traveled in my life, I’ve come across some nerve-wracking experiences; none as truly nerve-inducing as traveling with someone else for the very first time. Questions ranging from “will we get on each others nerves after a constant 4 days together?” and “will my need to control the radio on road trips ruin our relationship?” to “OMG, can I get away with a murder if forced to go to Branson, or will a jury be sympathetic?” start to pop into my head. Well, last month, my boyfriend M and I went on our very first road trip together. (Don’t worry, he’s still alive, I swear.)

With only 2 days to plan our trip, we had decided on a road trip to Chaco Culture National Historic Site. Chaco has been on my life-list, and M’s life-list, ever since I first heard about it. I immediately began planning; our hikes, our food, our route; our playlist. We originally decided to try and take in a few sites up near Santa Fe, as well as the Gila Wilderness, until we realized that this would become a very long week trip and I only had 4 days. One of the most important things I’ve learned while traveling the world is you MUST be flexible, so we settled on the interstate over backroads, and speed over winding mountain roads. (That “avoid interstate routes” option on a GPS is one of my favorite things.) As we were discussing camping options on the way up to Chaco, M mentioned that Truth or Consequences had some hot springs. Hot springs?! Yes sir, I am interested in that!

I found a hot springs’ adjacent motel in TorC for the same price as a boring highway motel. TorC’s hot springs district is “historic”, which can sometimes mean shitty, old, decrepit, or non-existent. Fortunately for these two travelers, we have open minds and adventurous spirits! Our motel, described on their website as a “classically charming 1950s motor lodge”, was the perfect thing for us. It had been remodeled and reopened by two gentlemen with unique style and fabulous taste.

Let me just set the scene… We arrive in TorC after dark, following some not-so-great directions to the motel, and park at the front entrance gates. Walking into the courtyard, we were quickly plunged into darkness. There were no outdoor lights on and only a small amount of light could be seen from behind a few curtains. I guess I should mention that the two fabulous owners had emailed me saying that if we arrived after 6pm not to worry about going to the main office. We would find our key in the open door of our room #8, titled “The Morning Glory Room”. (Bone-chilling flashbacks to scenes from Hostel or Wrong Turn began playing in my mind. Every person watching a movie version of this trip would be screaming at the screen “don’t go in there!”)

The room numbers were all but impossible to read in the dark so there I am, walking up to each door and searching for a room number by the light of my phone! I found that most of the rooms were not only vacant, but the doors were open. M was not happy with me as I entered each one to see if it was ours. After a few minutes of searching, we finally found our room; door open, key on table, lights out. M swept the room like an FBI agent, opening each door and peering around corners, before he finally settled down and we turned on the lights. The minute the lights were on, I was in love with the place!

Super-cute homemade pillowcase reused as a curtain

 

painted trim on wooden mirror – kudos on the wall color too!

 

Hot springs tub big enough to hold a small swingers party… or just me and M.

 

My favorite part…. petroglyphs drawn into the bedroom wall!

 

Wondering what to do with all those pesky wine bottles left behind when guests check out? Make a garden wall!

 

Fabulously friendly cat who sat with me for coffee in the morning

After an interesting night’s sleep (the hot springs had a narcotic amount of lithium in them and we passed out immediately after our soak, with the bed spinning and a glorious sinking-into-the-mattress feeling), we got up and walked over to the local breakfast spot….

not our car… but it is M’s photo so no stealing!

… and then on to a very funky weird packed used bookstore. I’ve been looking for a lawyers’ bookcase for years and now I know where they’ve all ended up – at this bookstore! Bookcases were haphazardly stacked on top of each other to the ceiling with no concern for gravity. Each room of this house was a different topic and once I found the travel room and the archaeology room, I was hooked! In the end, I found the companion book to my copy of an archaeological record of rock art in New Mexico, with whole sections dedicated to Chaco.

Maybe its the magical waters of TorC, or some kind of New Mexican vortex, but finding that book would prove to be the perfect beginning to the drive to Chaco.

The Inner Secrets of Tamales

Last month I went back to Houston for a friend’s wedding and to visit my family. While I was there, mom and I decided to try tamale-making for a second time. I’ve been perfecting the art of tamales here in El P with my best friend A. Mom has only made tamales one other time and we deemed it a ‘learning experience”.

Now I wanted to try some new recipes because I’ve been asked to give a cooking class for the Vegetarian Society of El Paso focusing on vegan tamales. Some of you might be thinking “what the F— are vegan tamales!?” while others may be wondering “what the F are tamales?!” Tamales are amazing Latin American comfort foods! Anything you desire can be mixed with cornmeal and wrapped in a corn husk (recycling!) for steaming. I didn’t truly understand the desire for tamales until I was almost 30, but for the last 4 years I’ve been a tamale-eating machine. I’ve even bought tamales out of the trunk of an old Mexican lady’s car in a supermarket parking lot in Joshua Tree, CA. True Story…

This is my chosen tamale-making guide. I love it!

So I decided that I should document the process along the way to help me with my cooking class this coming spring… and if I can kill 2 birds by also blogging about it, rock on!

 

First you need to let the cornhusks soak for a bit, say 30 minutes. Don’t buy cornhusks from your local English-speaking grocery. Head over to the nearest Spanish-speaking market and pick up all your ingredients.

Cooking our ingredients…

Roasting some green chiles…

Most recipes will call for lard but I’m using Crisco to keep these guys vegan.  Ask me sometime about my mother dropping this huge heavy Crisco can on my little girl toes. Only one nail came off and I forgave her once I was able to walk without a limp again. I relive this moment every time I pick up a Crisco can. 🙂 Hi mom!

Now I forgot to take a picture of the masa we were using. Masa is the cornmeal used for all tamales. Again, Spanish-speaking grocery (la tienda), not English-speaking grocery. I guess you could make your masa from scratch but really… what decade is this?! I’m cool with store-bought masa.

Mix the veggies and chopped green chiles, simmer and let cool

Whipped shortening looks like whipped cream but tastes terrible!

 

You’ll also need a large steamer for steaming – in El P we use A’s big turkey roaster. It is perfect! Alas, in Houston we had to create our own thing. Introducing the recycled tamale steamer! We needed to make a space between the water at the bottom of the pan and our little roaster thing (not seen).

Nothing says “Texas” like a football Dr Pepper can… and nothing says “Kristi” like a Pepsi can.

 Alright, now we assemble the tamales…

Spreading masa onto open corn husk. I use a spatula because they’re bendy.

Cheese or vegan cheese – it goes on top of your veggies

There are many ways to roll but I chose this one for my vegan tamales. Even added a little bow to hold the thing closed.

And if a bow doesn’t work, say Fuck It! and use ye ole traditional rubber bands.

Here’s mom rolling her tamales. Did I mention that this is a group activity? Making tamales solo would require way too much wine and boredom. Get some friends or relatives and have a tamale-making day!

Except for grandma.. grandmas doesn’t do tamales. She’s never even had a tamale. In her defense, she’s German. I bet there’s a saurkraut tamale out there somewhere.

Stand the tamales upright in the steamer so they don’t spill out…

The cans are doing their job!

 We also decided to try some dessert tamales… I’ve got dark chocolate tamales in my freezer right now and they are amazing! However, on this day we tried pineapple for my dad who loves all things tropical.

We followed the recipe but the filling was very soupy. On the bright side, it was pretty good to eat out of the bowl!

We decided to pour the tamale soup into a pie dish and bake it like cornbread. It was super tasty! Even grandma tried it.

Once your tamales are out of the steamer (1 hr-ish), bag them up in freezer bags and freeze them overnight. They will last a very long time in the freezer and are great for work lunches. Just be sure to label the bags as frozen tamales offer no secrets to their contents.

Labeling is important!

FYI – Did you know that Tamale is also a town in Ghana? The internet is amazing!

For more info on tamales, or to really mess with some facts, visit their Wikipedia page

8 Superbly Easy Ways to Go Green… in Case You Weren’t Already

So “green” has been around for more than a decade now. I really think there is no excuse for not developing your environmental ethics. (um, before we go further, let’s address the fact that I drive an SUV. Yes, I do drive an SUV. I also spent 7 years walking to work every day, carpooling to town/trailheads on weekends, plus I’m a park ranger. It doesn’t get any greener than that.)

Let us begin…

1. Solar Mio The sun is free… until some capitalist pig figures out how to charge you for it. It’ll happen…

So I don’t ski… but I did share my free solar juice with an Incan shaman who only spoke Quechua but had an iPod. Small world….

This is a most awesome device. A portable solar panel that is lightweight enough to strap to my backpack as I trekked across the Inca Trail. I needed some power for my iPod and this was the perfect thing! Its also the perfect thing to keep a GPS juiced up all day in the desert as you hike along. I figure if I’m living in “Sun City” I may as well take advantage of all the free power.

2. The Solar Mio is awesome and lightweight but wouldn’t charge my smartphone. So my dad presented me with the Fuse from Voltaic. This solar charger doesn’t fuck around. It can charge my iPhone, GPS, iPod, some can even charge my computer (with an adapter). Its kinda large so I wouldn’t take it backpacking, but it does travel with me frequently on car camping trips.

Let the sun shine…

Both solar chargers are permanently set out on my porch so they are always ready to go.

3. Another awesome thing about living in the desert besides free sun? Free laundry drying! As long as there isn’t a dust storm, a clothes drying rack is the way to go for laundry day.

Not only can you buy one at almost any grocery or big box store, but they are cheap! In El Paso’s arid environment, I can have dry clothes (unshrunk) in an hour. There’s no electricity cost and no heat build-up that my air conditioner needs to fight against. Perfect!

If you don’t wanna buy one, get creative. I once strung climbing rope between two trees in the backyard – using what I had on hand.

4. Freecycle…. you’ve heard of Craigslist and you’ve heard of recycling. Freecycle is the bad-ass bastard child of the two! People post their random crap (and non-crap) that they want to get rid of. Someone else reads that post and says “Hey! I could use that crap!” and off they go. I’ve given away christmas decorations and cds. I’ve gotten old VHS tapes and those big glass pickle jars.

Basically if you have a pile of buttons, wine corks, or carpet pieces – someone wants those. Its better than it ending up in the trash. You can find some seriously good stuff. Lots of freecycling baby clothes, unopened cans of food, furniture, etc. It rocks and you will rock if you sign up.

5. Yard sales, tag sales, garage sales…. call it what you want, I call it cheap and recycling! I’ve sold lots of stuff at these sales and I think all of my clothes as a baby and child came from someone’s yard sale in Galveston.. Go mom!

6. Thrift stores – corporate garage sales. They rock and you can find the most amazing stuff at them. Instead of sporting that shirt that everyone can buy at their local Target or Neiman Marcus, go for a truly one-of-a-kind item. After all, you are one-of-a-kind!

7. Eat less meat and animal products. Seriously. The factory farming of animals not only uses up food crops that we could be eating but it also uses petroleum products in the shipping and maintaining of all of these animals… millions of tons of animals are shipped each week. (Suddenly my SUV isn’t so bad, now is it?) I won’t even mention cow farts and methane gas….

8. Grow your own food. Gardening is great for your health, your stress levels, your wallet, and the environment. Start with something small, like a windowsill Chia Herb Garden. My mom had one of these and they grew easily and abundantly.

Now, dear internet, its your turn. I want to hear about your easy, cheap, or DIY green ideas and actions. We can all learn from each other.