This past weekend’s travels and explorations practically defy description. I’ve been mulling it over, trying to figure out how best to convey what I experienced. I’m certain neither word nor image will do it justice. But as I am committed to try and capture our wanderings and ponderings here, I’ll give it a go. Part of this second year of nomading is seeking out our National Parks and National Forests, truly precious shared resources and crown jewels of this amazingly diverse country. Now, more than ever, I feel very strongly that experiencing our National Parks and supporting those who continue to protect them is a civic duty. I know that we are very lucky and very fortunate to be able to visit so many of them on this trip. The fact that we were able to squeeze in so much in two days was incredible.

This weekend we experienced perhaps the greatest dichotomy within the National Park system. If this were an English 101 compare or contrast assignment, it would be a no brainer. First, we visited Carlsbad Caverns. Deep under the surface, dark, damp, with near constant temperature, the caverns are striking in varieties of forms that have been in the making for millions of years. It is so vast that even those with claustrophobia might not feel closed in amid the fragile rocks 800 feet below the surface. Carlsbad Caverns formed over the course of millions of years as geological conditions generated sulfuric acid that dissolved the limestone of the Capitan Reef located within an ancient shallow sea.

The next day we visited White Sands, bright, vast, ever-shifting dunes rising high in the dry, hot, and seemingly desolate and barren desert landscape, the result of millions of years of erosion and renewal. Unchanging yet always changing. A fragile ecosystem unlike anything else. So undulating and varied with walls of sand so tall that people with agoraphobia might feel a little less anxious or exposed. It is the world’s largest gypsum dunefield and it all started 280 million years ago when the Permian Sea covered the area and gypsum settled on the sea floor.

Honestly, Google and AI can tell you more than I can about the geology and history of these national treasures. What I can share is how small they made me feel, in a good way. The world has been forming and reforming and will continue to do so. I am grateful anytime I can appear as an impermanent speck in any of its glorious settings.

In Carlsbad, they ask you not to touch any of the formations as the oils from the hands can permanently affect them. At White Sands we hiked over dunes, making footprints that disappeared with a breeze. In both places we took only photos, made only memories, and left nothing of ourselves behind.

I humbly offer strong encouragement to visit these places as soon as you can and while you physically can. We don’t take our mobility for granted and recognize that as we get older more and more of these climbing, crawling, and sliding destinations will be out of reach. For those who can not travel to these places for whatever reason, I humbly share these photos, as imperfect and lacking in scale as they may be.

And as an addendum, I want to add that we also squeezed in a very quick stop to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park Visitors Center on our way to the caverns. We had planned to camp at GMNP on Friday and hike a little, but the weather changed our plans. Still, it was impressive to drive through. And then, of course we simply HAD to stop in Roswell enroute to our destinations, because if ever a place demanded a sidequest, it was Roswell.