by Angela Smith | Oct 7, 2017 | Introspective
A stalactite (hanging from the “ceiling”) and stalagmite (coming from the cave floor) almost touching at Carlsbad Caverns.
As an author, I love to write about adventure for my characters. I love to experience adventure myself, but only the kind with a safe outcome.
But how can we ever truly know when we’ll be safe?
For our vacation, I really wanted some adventure, but nothing too crazy. No spelunking or diving out of perfectly good airplanes, thank you very much. My husband and I love to hike, backpack, road-trip, and go off-roading in our Jeep (yes, that has its own danger). We love the outdoors, and I prefer my feet to be firmly planted on the earth. Outside. Where I can clearly see what’s going on. And definitely no crowds for me.
So when my husband suggested Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, I froze. Then I tried to list all the reasons we shouldn’t do that. Not when there are so many other good things to see and do.
I mean, I hate dark holes in the ground. 750 feet worth of dark holes, climbing down some cavern that we as a human race can’t really understand. How can we truly know it won’t crumble? Or those stalactites won’t decide to fall. They look fiercely piercing to me. And I really don’t like dark enclosed spaces at all. I don’t really even like elevators, most especially one carved inside a 75 foot story hole in the ground.
We’ll trek down the 75 switchback trail, experience the Big Room, and take the elevator ride back up.
This is where I almost panicked
Growing up in Central Texas, I’ve had my fair share of caverns. Family vacations, school field trips. Why would I want to see another cavern? I’ve actually already been to Carlsbad Caverns as a child with my family. Why go again? Did my husband not understand how traumatizing most of the caverns had been to my young soul? Tour guides turning out the light so you can see there and experience how truly dark it is down there? Barely able to breathe. No thanks. Been there, done that. Probably had a shirt at one time or another.
I wanted to be brave, but I’m not really. I almost had a panic attack on the third switchback, especially after the ranger who took our ticket very excitedly told us we’d be hiking down 75 of them. It’s one thing to be driving up a mountain on a switchback trail, which in hindsight is probably way more dangerous, but it’s another to be underground, the dark, where you can’t see. But it was lit very well, actually. No tour guides turned out the lights and no rocks fell on my head. I felt the fear and did it anyway, and it was an exhilarating experience. I almost turned around on the third switchback, and I most assuredly almost cried. But the further we hiked, the more comfortable I became. Even brave enough to walk ahead of my husband and stop holding his hand down the long trek (although that was nice, and any excuse to hold hands, right?)
And it was massive. Nothing like an underground hole at all. It is amazing beyond words, and the history of this cavern is amazing. The fact a 16 year old boy discovered it when he saw what he first thought was smoke and wondered where it could be coming from back in 1898, then discovered it was bats flying out of a cave that he would later explore. A 16 year old, born in Mason County, Texas, who moved to New Mexico. He built his own ladder from wire and wood and held the ladder in one hand and a kerosene lantern in the other. To find out more about James White, just Google his name. Or better yet, visit the cavern and learn from the history there.
This stalagmite is still growing and one of the largest in the world. I can’t remember the exact history now, unfortunately, but it was amazing. Pictures can’t do this justice.
Needless to say, I had an amazing time and I am glad this tiny but pervading fear did not ruin such a wonderful experience. Seeing it again now, after all these years, was amazing. And I would definitely go again.
Fear is such a funny thing, and different for everyone. Some people can jump out of a perfectly good airplane but scream at spiders. But fear is a true emotion that is wonderful to conquer.
Mind you, I won’t ever conquer the fear of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, but crawling down a hole and then rushing back in an elevator fixed into that massive hole 75 stories below ground now doesn’t seem so bad. And these experiences always make me a better writer as a carve adventures for my characters.
Do you have any fears that, on the outside, seem so silly but on the inside are actually huge and terrifying?
by Angela Smith | Oct 6, 2017 | Introspective
I’ve had a lot of fun in my life, and I’ve also had plenty of losses as well as routine. Most times, I’d choose routine, but there are times you have to get out in the world and explore. Still, in this day and age with so many bad things happening, it’s hard not to feel anxious.
On Monday, after learning of the shooting in Las Vegas, my husband and I were going on vacation and were planning to take the first road trip out of state that we’d taken in three years. We love road trips! We also love to cram as much as we can into a short amount of time and not really have a plan. However, this road trip, on many levels, gave me a lot of anxiety, especially because of the recent tragedy in Vegas so soon after all the natural disasters across the world.
It really makes one want to hunker down indoors and hide sometimes.
It’s especially easy to hunker down when you have so many other responsibilities at home. A budget, pets to care for, family who might need you, and our work-in-progress remodel. For some people, it’s easy to pack up and go at a moment’s notice and for others, it’s a hard thing to even consider. Despite the ongoing tragedies, we decided to stick with our unplanned plan and take our little road trip. And boy did we not regret it, even though we almost did!
On our way home, tragedy almost struck! If not for my husband paying attention and what I now joke with him as his martial artist skills behind the wheel, I might not be alive to make this post today! (I think he gets a kick out of me bragging on his martial artists skills behind the wheel.)
Tragedy really makes you realize how quickly things can happen in an instance. How much you should cherish each moment. I’ve had plenty of losses, and with my Type I Diabetes for 36 years now, I wake up everyday thankful to be alive. Something so many of us take for granted. I’ve had plenty of scary moments with low blood sugar reactions. But still, things can change in an instant.
My husband and I were about five hours from getting home. The speed limit was 75, and he was going about 70. It was dark enough for the bright lights and there were 2 lanes on our side but one on the other and not a divided highway. A long and straight highway, but not without its issues! My husband had just dimmed his lights for traffic on the other side of the highway.
He was looking over my direction and I asked what and he said there was something beside us, not on the road but kind of like it might have been a train and he was trying to figure out what it was. Then, suddenly, a white Ford F250 pickup pulls out from either a store or a café (or a bar since he was really stupid about it). There’s another vehicle behind him, but not right up against him. He pulls out, takes up both lanes of our 2 lane road, and stops or at least hesitates as he looks to be about to pull into our lane. We don’t know why. Probably because he realizes there are 2 18 wheelers barreling down on the other side of the road where he is trying to turn.
There is no way, no how anyone with the best brakes could have avoided hitting him. I’m somewhat just dumbstruck at this point because I am sure we are about to die. And it’s still dark or more like dusk but light enough you can see the road and the ditch you may or may not flip into.
So my husband, hoping the other car doesn’t pull up behind this pickup because we’d hit him instead, brakes and pulls into this café or store or whatever it is (it really isn’t a town, but you know how things are on the outskirts of a town) right behind the truck, just barely missing his backend. There’s a ditch and shoulder. Thank God there aren’t any curbs like many towns and such have. He moves around him, back onto the shoulder, the shoulder is one of those bumpy really ditchy where the concrete is thicker than the dirt and ditch if that makes sense. There’s a drop off but not a culvert, and a harsh transition between road and land. Then I’m thinking, well we didn’t hit him but we’re about to lose control and hit the ditch and flip or overcorrect and go on the other side of the highway with all these 18 wheelers. But he managed to get back on the road and keep driving like nothing had ever happened. I distinctly remember the sound of the tires while driving between the shoulder and the ditch, where the concrete just dips off into the ground. As we are talking about it afterward, he later recalls the sound of our ridge grappler tires and says he’s very impressed with the way they handled the situation. Well, I was impressed by the way he handled the situation and later told him he probably didn’t see a train but our guardian angels. Even my husband, who is calm, cool, and collected about most things, thought we were about to die. It was a bad situation. Probably neither we nor the drive of that truck would have survived at that speed. I later joked with my husband: “Well, we did want to go off-roading!”
But we came out of it. We got home. We aren’t scarred, and we had a lot of fun! We crammed a lot of stuff in like we always do on our vacations! And I couldn’t stop thinking about the Vegas victims, and so many people who are killed in tragedy or in wrecks that happen in the blink of an eye. Most of them would probably tell you to go out and live your life, don’t be afraid of what might happen. I went down the 750 foot cave of Carlsbad Caverns almost panicking in the first drop because I’m so afraid of the dark and enclosed spaces, and yet it was so exhilarating!
Oh, and on our trip we stopped for gas and our Jeep didn’t start because the battery went dead. A Good Samaritan at the gas pump helped and we were able to make it to an auto parts store. He didn’t know us, and we didn’t know him, but he didn’t hesitate to help us! In this day and age, it can be scary to offer help or ask for help.
In these tragic times, when everyone is wondering what is wrong with the world and how can we make this a better place, I offer one solution: kindness. So many heroes in this world today, but we don’t have to save the world in order to truly save the world. Living our life, experiencing everything that nature has to offer us, and sharing our experiences with the world can help change our world. Offering a smile to a stranger, helping them when they need a jump-start in a totally different state, or being there for someone when they need to talk it out. Most of us can’t explain or imagine how anyone could make the decision to take a life, and some other people might say we all have violence within us. In the world I live in, and seeing the worst at my job in prosecution, I still refuse to believe that. I still believe in kindness and the intrinsic good in most of us. And I refuse to stop living my life and exploring just because I’m afraid of what might happen. I do believe we are at the cusp of change and it might not be the best of changes, but I also believe we can make it through stronger, with a deeper understanding and appreciation of humanity.
So smile! If your life isn’t what you want it to be, maybe you just need to offer a smile to someone else! Maybe you need to make a list of everything you are grateful for! Just in case…just in case it’s the last smile you will ever give someone. And just in case it’s the last gratitude list you ever make. We need to put our differences aside and share love, not hate and propaganda!
Thanks for reading this far as I process everything going on. And now for some pictures!
