Whites City & Carlsbad Caverns, NM
In England, there are certain criteria that a place needs to meet in order to qualify as a city. Some of these criteria are commonsensical, such as population size. Others are more questionable and reflect the lack of separation of church and state in England, such as requiring cities to have a cathedral. I'm not saying England has the best system for classifying cities, but at least its system prevents travesties like Whites City from happening.
For the hundred or so miles leading up to Whites City, there are dozens of roadside signs advertising all the great things to be found there. When you arrive, this is what you get:
This is basically the entire "city", which must have a population of about 25 ... and certainly doesn't have a cathedral (although one of these establishments does call itself an opera house). You check into all of the city's motels and RV parks from the same desk, and if you are not checking into the Best Western, you have to sign a document stating that you know that Best Western is not affiliated with the establishment where you are staying. Our motel was on the other side of town (i.e. across the street), so we could have easily sneaked Segui in without their knowledge. They told us on the phone that they only had one room left; we arrived after 11pm to find only two other cars in the parking lot. They also claimed to have wifi. This trip has made me believe that we need a wifi police to go around and put hoteliers in wifi jail if they don't provide the functioning, high-speed wireless Internet access that they claim they do.
Okay. Rant over.
We spent a few hours in the morning at the Carlsbad Caverns. They were quite beautiful and very large. We arrived at the start of the day, off-season, so there were hardly any other people there. The only thing to disturb the tranquility was a staff member who was vacuuming the cavern paths(!). I took some slow shutter speed photography (because it was so dark down there). Lisa and I posed for a picture with a 10 second long exposure; trying to remain still made us feel like it was the early days of photography and we were posing for a dageurreotype.
Upon leaving the caverns, as we drove down the hill, Lisa noticed a tarantula crossing the road. Lisa grew up around tarantulas, so she's really comfortable with them. Back in Canyon de Chelly, she found and removed a baby tarantula from our campsite. I, one the other hand, grew up watching movies like Kingdom of the Spiders in an island country that possesses no poisonous spiders or snakes. As a result, I spent that entire night at Canyon de Chelly worrying about the baby tarantula returning to our hogan. Today was the first time I've actually seen a tarantula in the wild. Fortunately, we were safe in our car, so it didn't scare me ... and Lisa was able to take this great shot of the beast (click to enlarge):
We left the caverns around 10:30am, then drove half the width of Texas to get to Austin. There truly is nothing at all in West Texas ... and, as a result, there truly is nothing to report about it here.
For the hundred or so miles leading up to Whites City, there are dozens of roadside signs advertising all the great things to be found there. When you arrive, this is what you get:
This is basically the entire "city", which must have a population of about 25 ... and certainly doesn't have a cathedral (although one of these establishments does call itself an opera house). You check into all of the city's motels and RV parks from the same desk, and if you are not checking into the Best Western, you have to sign a document stating that you know that Best Western is not affiliated with the establishment where you are staying. Our motel was on the other side of town (i.e. across the street), so we could have easily sneaked Segui in without their knowledge. They told us on the phone that they only had one room left; we arrived after 11pm to find only two other cars in the parking lot. They also claimed to have wifi. This trip has made me believe that we need a wifi police to go around and put hoteliers in wifi jail if they don't provide the functioning, high-speed wireless Internet access that they claim they do.
Okay. Rant over.
We spent a few hours in the morning at the Carlsbad Caverns. They were quite beautiful and very large. We arrived at the start of the day, off-season, so there were hardly any other people there. The only thing to disturb the tranquility was a staff member who was vacuuming the cavern paths(!). I took some slow shutter speed photography (because it was so dark down there). Lisa and I posed for a picture with a 10 second long exposure; trying to remain still made us feel like it was the early days of photography and we were posing for a dageurreotype.
Upon leaving the caverns, as we drove down the hill, Lisa noticed a tarantula crossing the road. Lisa grew up around tarantulas, so she's really comfortable with them. Back in Canyon de Chelly, she found and removed a baby tarantula from our campsite. I, one the other hand, grew up watching movies like Kingdom of the Spiders in an island country that possesses no poisonous spiders or snakes. As a result, I spent that entire night at Canyon de Chelly worrying about the baby tarantula returning to our hogan. Today was the first time I've actually seen a tarantula in the wild. Fortunately, we were safe in our car, so it didn't scare me ... and Lisa was able to take this great shot of the beast (click to enlarge):
We left the caverns around 10:30am, then drove half the width of Texas to get to Austin. There truly is nothing at all in West Texas ... and, as a result, there truly is nothing to report about it here.
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