I was at the wheel on the east side of Oklahoma, and Barry was studying a map of Arkansas, our next state. As usual, I was in hurry-hurry mode, and he was not. “Hot Springs looks interesting,” he said. I wondered whether they were out of the way, and more importantly, if they were bathing-suit-optional hot springs.

As luck would have it, our next stop was lunch at the Pig Out Palace, notable for their 32-oz beverage glasses, frighteningly large portions, and wi-fi. I finally satisfied my craving for chicken fried steak. Afterwards, I sat in the oversized booth feeling bloated while Barry satisfied his craving for email.

To our surprise, there was a message from Barbara, mentioning that if we stopped in Hot Springs, Arkansas, we should let her know. I tried to call her, but got her voicemail. So I called her husband, Jim.

“Barbara says there’s someone we should look up in Hot Springs — is it someone we’ve heard about?” I asked. Jim chuckled. “Her sister,” he replied, “and my brother. They’re married, you know. To each other.”

We had indeed heard good things about Della and Alex over the years we’d known Jim and Barbara, so we got in touch, and they invited us to their house on very short notice. The route Della recommended took us on ribbon-like Route 7, through the lush spring green of the Ouachita National Forest. It was just as beautiful as the California coast, and the only other vehicles were three motorcycles out to enjoy the curves.

One of my favorite travel writers, Peter Jenkins, once mentioned an acronym he had in his diary: T.A.A. It stood for “Totally Amazed by Alabama.” I had a different T.A.A.: Totally Amazed by Arkansas.

Della and Alex made us feel right at home, and we felt like family, maybe because we know so many of their family members! The four of us sat in the living room, talking, for quite a while. Our connection to them is through their siblings, but I was enjoying getting to know how they are different from those siblings.

Still, we’d arrived fairly late, and at about 10:30, Della turned to Alex. “Well, Mr. Cole, I think it’s time for us to go to bed,” she said. Alex nodded and started to get up.

Barry and I burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” they asked.

The line, the delivery, and the response were something we’d heard dozens of times aboard Complexity. We’d be moored somewhere in Alaska or British Columbia, relaxing after dinner and talking for hours. But Jim and Barbara are super-early birds, and we are the opposite. So Barbara would turn to her husband at about 10:30, and she’d say a line we grew to know well: “Well, Mr. Cole, I think it’s time for us to go to bed.”

The following day, we slept late by Cole standards — past 7. Alex had long since gone to work, but Della had the day free to give us what she called the “nickel tour” of Hot Springs. Just up the road from their house are mines where mucky mud yields sparkling quartz crystals. We visited one of the operations and took photos of ourselves with enormous furniture-sized crystals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then she took us into the town of Hot Springs, where more surprises awaited us. This was no mere soaking pool, but blocks of elegant brick bathhouses where people had come for centuries to “take the waters,” now turned into a national park. The building we visited was full of original — and creepy — equipment. There were steam boxes where only the person’s head would stick out, rows of cubicles with claw-footed tubs, and elaborately complicated showers. One room had all kinds of iron torture equipment, predecessors to modern physical therapy devices. The massage rooms contained scary-looking electrical widgets, not relaxing at all.

On our way back, Della drove us by the off-road vehicle park their son-in-law manages. I had never seen such a thing — there were roads so steep, it was hard to imagine any vehicle negotiating them, even a special-purpose one. I was also surprised by the fact that the property was beautifully wooded; I’d expected a place exclusively for people to play with cars to be much more barren.

Our stop in Hot Springs was too brief, but we said farewell and traveled to Little Rock that afternoon, pitching our tent in Burns Park.

Della told us to check out the Big Dam Bridge, a soaring half-mile bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas river. It was a beautiful piece of engineering, providing an excellent vantage point for watching barges locking up and down the river. But what intrigued me more was the social engineering aspect — in a state with a reputation for poor nutrition and obesity, here was something you could only enjoy if you got out and burned calories. On this hot weekday evening, the bridge was a busy, popular place. I saw super-fit spandex-clad cyclists, parents with toddlers, people walking after work in their office clothes, novice rollerbladers, and a very sweaty woman jogging in jeans.

Distant thunder and lightning made me wonder if we should have stayed with Alex and Della; instead, we drove back to our tent. A little while later, we struck up a conversation with Robin, camping in her car across from us. She had such an amazing story — not mine to tell, I’m afraid — that we dug into the van for wine glasses and that special bottle of Tom’s Pear-a-dice wine, and the three of us settled around the picnic table and talked into the night.

About a week before we’d left Seattle, Barry and I received a couple of going-away presents with far-reaching effects. They’re simply purple rubber bracelets, inscribed with “A Complaint Free World.org.” The way they work is this: You put one on your wrist. If you complain or criticize or gossip, you have to take it off and move it to the other wrist. The goal is to change behavior, which is supposed to take 21 days. The longest we’d gone without changing ours was about four days. We called them “cheap marriage therapy.”

Fairly early in the evening, we’d mentioned the bracelets to Robin. But she’d just left a bizarre relationship, and she needed to do some serious venting — complaining, criticizing, and gossiping, along with eye-rolling, grousing, and grumping. Still, she had a great attitude. And when she pantomimed taking off a bracelet and moving it to the other wrist, we all cracked up — especially since she did it many times.

It was very late when we finally crawled into our tent for the night, and there were thunderstorms and torrential downpours that woke us several times, but I didn’t mind. After meeting Robin, I figured we’d been there in the park for a reason. Robin, if you’re out there, please write!

Our last day in Arkansas was overcast, and the river, bridges, and downtown buildings made me think I was in Portland, Oregon. We spent the morning at the Clinton Presidential Library, which was interesting but surreal. I’ve been to other presidential libraries, but those were for dead presidents. Imagine having a museum — and a gift shop — devoted to you while you were still alive. What would you say about yourself?

The “spin” on Bill Clinton’s years in the White House left my head “spinning.” The strangest thing was reliving those years right now, when Hillary is fighting so hard for the Democratic nomination. I was looking hard for clues to Hillary, but the exhibits hardly mention her at all. There are ball gowns and a few biographical items, and a video she narrated about redecorating the White House.

I dragged Barry into the gift shop and then browsed the entire store, curious. There were politically-correct handicrafts, ecologically-sensitive kitsch, and left-wing books, along with cult-of-Bill refrigerator magnets and buttons. Next to the door was a life-sized image of Bill Clinton, sans Hillary. As usual, I picked up a couple of postcards, but Barry quickly scanned the merchandise and found a key item lacking. “That’s funny,” he said. “I don’t see any cigars.”

And with that, we left Totally Amazing Arkansas and headed for Tennessee…and Graceland.

Author’s note: We’re currently in Beaufort, NC, but there are several stories of our adventures in places west of here that haven’t been published yet. At the risk of confusing y’all, I’m just sticking them out there as I get ‘em done. –Meps

When we crossed from Texas into Oklahoma, it was as though Mother Nature made the border herself. The dusty ranch landscape suddenly became green farmland. There were classic white farmhouses, each framed by trees planted by some settler’s wife. No longer West, but Midwest.

At Red Rock Canyon State Park, we arrived just after dark to find the ranger getting ready to go home. His weathered features and earnest slow speech made me think of a movie caricature of an Okie. I wondered how many generations of his family had lived in Oklahoma.

Often, my eyes trick me when I arrive in a new place after dark. All I could see were farm fields, so I asked the ranger, “How big is the park?”

He scratched his head and gave me a slow, earnest answer. “Well, it’s not that big. You’ll drive down this road here, and don’t worry about the folks at the bottom of the hill; I told ‘em to leave. There are tent sites on both sides of the road, and there’s a good one across from the bathhouse — number 24 or 25, I think? No, maybe it’s 34…”

He went on in elaborate detail about which sites were best for a tent. It sounded like the whole park was just campsites, and it also sounded like we’d be there all night listening to descriptions of them. Finally, I had to ask, “What is there to do in the park?”

“Well, er, there are a lot of campsites. It’s mostly for relaxing, I guess.”

I was intrigued by this Oklahoma concept of a state park just for relaxing, and that’s exactly what we did there. We pitched our tent and spent two nights and one whole slow-paced day. We read books, did some writing, took long showers, and sorted pictures in a rustic picnic shelter. I could imagine the shelter on a hot summer weekend, reserved for a family reunion or church picnic. There would be a sign written on a paper plate, and multiple generations would be sharing hamburgers and potato salad and cake. Relaxing.

In the evening of the second day, another ranger came by to collect our money. He wore the same uniform, but he didn’t look like his great-great-grandparents came from Oklahoma. As he told me, they didn’t.

Back in the 1970’s, Dave was one of thousands of people applying for park jobs in California, where he’d grown up. He heard that in Oklahoma, they had more park jobs than they could fill. “The only qualification for the job back then was an 8th grade education,” he laughed.

So he moved to Oklahoma, going the opposite way of the masses. He’s raised his family in Oklahoma, and his idea of a vacation is visiting family in Arkansas or Illinois, or putting on a fireworks show for friends. I could imagine him attending a family reunion or church picnic.

Dave never actually said that he was the head ranger for the park, but we got that impression from his comments on the operation of the park. His job has a whole range of challenges — from drafting the park’s budget to hiring a company to pick up the garbage to overseeing teenagers working at the swimming pool. But as the buck-stops-here guy, he also has to occasionally remove a wasp nest from a restroom or drive around to collect camping fees from people like us.

These days, I bet it takes more than an 8th grade education to get hired as an Oklahoma park ranger. It sounds like a fun job, except for those wasp nests. But could Barry and I live in Oklahoma?

Well, yes, it turns out. There is navigable water on the east side of the state. All we’d have to do is sail up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, and then we’d probably be the first liveaboard sailboaters in Oklahoma. Flutterby’s shallow draft would come in handy, and best of all, it would be a lot cheaper than moorage on the Atlantic or Pacific.

Just kidding! …wanted to see if anyone was actually reading this (grin).

We have a little crew of strange passengers in the Squid Wagon. Those of you who have seen the van, packed almost to the ceiling with our personal belongings (and a few impersonal ones), are probably wondering where they find seats.

There’s Van Moose, a strange little metal Christmas creature who hangs from the rear view mirror. His name is a takeoff on “vamoose,” which means “let’s go.” I figure, if Van Moose says “let’s go,” then Squidley will do so. We have had no car trouble since we hung Van Moose on the rear view mirror in Altadena, California.

There’s Frankie the Bear, who rides between the front seats and guards the van when we’re not aboard. How could you possibly break into a vehicle that is guarded by a chubby little white bear with the face of a smiling Buddha?

Frankie has been riding shotgun with us for over 15 years, and his favorite thing is to blow the horn. He blew the horn on our last car so much, he wore it out. With this in mind, we knew we were taking a risk to let him blow the horn in the Squid Wagon. But when we crossed the border into our final state, North Carolina, we had to let him blow the horn for about a minute. Luckily, there were no other cars on the road, or Frankie might have gotten us into trouble.

There’s another bear, Scuppers, who rides wherever he damn well pleases. He’s the mischievous one, and when things go wrong, he’s usually the suspect. It took us a long time to get the van started in Asheville, and we think it was because Scuppers had met all the bears in Julie’s guest room and wanted to stay with them.

Scuppers wears a little blue sweater with a sailboat on it, but when it gets hot, he sunbathes nude on the dashboard. I’m surprised that the cops in the Bible Belt haven’t pulled us over for that.

And then there’s Michael: St. Michael the Archangel, whose picture is mounted on the dashboard, stomping on a demon. I was a little afraid of demons when we left, you know, car trouble demons, accident demons, flat tire demons, theft demons. But Michael kept them all at bay, through a trip that carried us over 5000 miles from Seattle to San Diego to Beaufort, North Carolina.

At noon today, we drove over the last bridge and into the boatyard. I parked the very blue Squid Wagon next to our very red boat, and I turned off the engine. The silence was deafening.

And now what? Which project do we start? Wait, I still have to write about Graceland!

It’s going to be a weird transition, but we have our critter friends to help. We sailors are a superstitious lot, so they’ll go from keeping us safe on the road to keeping us safe on the boat.

Thanks to everyone who helped us make it from there to here without getting lonely — Sharon and Dave, and Jim and Barbara and Abby, and Mike and Nita, and Michael, and Tom and Gudrun, and Julie and Ed, and Daisy, and Ellen and Gary, and Barbara and Joe, and Jeannie and Cliff and Jerry, and Todd, and Michael and Doeri and Eliza, and Brenda and John, and Aunt Jo, and Bonnie and Chuck, and Harley and Annabelle, and Della and Alex, and Robin-in-Little-Rock, and Julie E., and James, and Pat and Belinda, and Stevie. (deep breath) And thank you to everyone who has phoned and emailed and left comments on the blog, because without you, we’d just be a couple of boring American tourists.

We took our first really, really long vacation in 1993, when we were in our late 20’s. We’d planned to drive across the US, camping and seeing the sights, for a few months. It turned into two years.

A couple of months into this odyssey, we stopped at a campground in Villa Nueva, New Mexico. We were hot, tired, and fractious as we walked around the campground, looking for a site. Only two sites were occupied, along the peaceful river, but we were looking for privacy, so we disregarded that vicinity.

Suddenly, a booming voice rang out. “How’re you gals doin’?”

At the time, Barry was clean-shaven and wore his hair in a style that today is called a mullet: Neatly cut on top, long in the back, but very evenly cut and brushed. So from a distance, we might have appeared as two girls. Our quarrels evaporated into giggles, and we turned to see who it was.

The voice belonged to a friendly-looking bearded guy with a musical instrument. At the time, it looked like a guitar, but I later found out it was a dobro. He introduced himself, saying, “Hi, I’m Harley, and this here is Annabelle.” Annabelle had a guitar and had been singing in a beautiful voice. We were charmed, and after a bit of conversation, decided to set up camp right next to them — the other site was occupied by Harley’s parents, who were retired and had come for a visit.

We had intended to stay for one night and hurry on towards Las Vegas. Instead, we lingered at Villa Nueva for several days, enjoying Harley and Annabelle’s music, sharing meals around the campfire, telling stories, and feeling like family.

At the time, Harley and Annabelle were staying in various New Mexico state parks, making a living selling musical instruments and accessories at the Santa Fe flea market. One thing they told us stuck in the back of my mind: They had met when Annabelle walked into a little music shop Harley ran in Oklahoma, right at the Texas border on I-40. The shop wasn’t doing too well, so they closed it up and tried the flea markets for the summer.

Those few days changed our traveling style. We realized that encounters with people were just as important as scenery and history and wildlife, and were often more memorable. We became more open to meeting people and talking to them, and within two days of leaving Villa Nueva, we’d already met a couple more people with fascinating life stories.

In the years since then, some of our encounters with strangers have led to our biggest adventures, such as Peter and Mannfred, the two German fellows who talked us into canoeing the Yukon River. And we realized that the magical and hilarious week we spent at the home of Daniel, a man we met on a street corner in Key West, didn’t have to be isolated incidents.

In those days, there was no e-mail, and we didn’t usually exchange contact information with people we met. So we lost track of Harley and Annabelle and the elder Russells, but we never forgot about them.

When we started planning our drive across the country from Seattle to North Carolina, I had a wild hair. I sat down at the computer, and I typed in one simple search phrase, in Google: Harley Annabelle Oklahoma.

“Omigod!” I exclaimed, causing Barry to come peer over my shoulder.

Harley and Annabelle didn’t have a website. But there were thousands of references to them and their shop, the Sandhills Curiosity Shop, “Redneck Capital of the World.”

It turns out that in 1999, they were sitting in the little 100-year-old storefront they owned in Erick, Oklahoma, playing their guitars together. Harley has been a professional musician, and Annabelle is a songwriter with a lovely soprano voice. As they were jamming together, a fellow stuck his head inside the shop and heard the music. “I have a tour bus full of folks outside,” he said. “Can I bring them inside for some music?”

The tourists, who were from the UK, trooped inside, and Harley and Annabelle put on an impromptu show for them. Suddenly, the little storefront, which had been an unsuccessful health food store, an unsuccessful music store, and an unsuccessful antique store, turned into a hugely successful tourist attraction, located on the famous Route 66. Writers, photographers, and filmmakers have visited, and despite the fact that they don’t advertise or promote themselves, hundreds of people come to see them each week.

We stopped in yesterday, and due to an e-mail fluke, our visit was a surprise. But they hadn’t forgotten us, and I was quickly enveloped in a bone-crushing hug from great big Harley. Annabelle’s smile was just as kind and welcoming as I remembered.

We looked around the place, taking in the visual overload of Route 66 memorabilia and collectables on the walls, tables, ceiling, and floor. There were hundreds of photos of the groups they’ve entertained, along with cards and gifts and clippings they’ve received from their worldwide friends. When we arrived, they were entertaining a couple from Holland, Ernst and Annette, who were driving the entire length of Route 66. There was a lot of silly banter, and Harley was flirting outrageously with Annette. I laughed so hard, I got a cramp in my jaw.

Then Harley and Annabelle picked up their guitars and played a couple of tunes. Annabelle’s voice was more beautiful than we’d remembered as they played “What a difference a day makes.” And when Harley started in on his guitar solo, it was just like the good old days in Villa Nueva State Park. They finished up with their trademark, “Get your kicks on Route 66.”

After Ernst and Annette left (with Harley and Annabelle blowing kisses), we visited the “Redneck Castle,” their home behind the shop. It’s a cute little house, decorated with even more collectibles and antiques. Annabelle fixed some lunch, and we talked and talked. Before we left, late in the afternoon, we took more photos with them in front of the Sandhills Curiosity Shop, and Harley recommended a campground where we should stop for the night.

Like other friends we visited as we traveled the west coast, we left a gift, one of Michael’s jars of homemade kumquat marmalade. There’s a small connection between these musical friends of ours. In a few years, Disneyland is planning to open “Cars Land,” based on the animated film, “Cars.” Evidently, the Sandhills Curiosity Shop gave the designers of Cars and Cars Land some inspiration, and Michael will surely be one of the first to see it on one of his many trips to Disneyland.

Harley and Annabelle gave us many, many gifts, from the hugs and the music to the kisses they blew as we drove away. The best gift of all is knowing that these two people, who we are proud to say we’ve known for 15 years, are doing well and enjoying life without even leaving small-town Erick, Oklahoma.

While we’ve been out traveling around the world, meeting people and making friends, they’ve  stayed home, and the world and all its new friends are beating a path to their door. I don’t know how long Barry and I will be traveling, but someday, we too will settle down. And then what will we do?

Fifteen years after the first lesson, Harley and Annabelle have taught us another important one. There’s nothing wrong with not traveling. If you don’t travel, and you have a creative, joyous, open heart and something very special to share with the world, then it doesn’t matter where you are. The world will come to you.

Note: There are a few pictures on the site of Bug Ranch and Harley and Annabelle. Go to http://www.mepsnbarry.com/pix/

We left Roswell, New Mexico, headed for Texas, where we would be the aliens. On iTunes, it was time for another round of silly songs, beginning with Lyle Lovett:

That’s right (you’re not from Texas)
That’s right (you’re not from Texas)
That’s right (you’re not from Texas)
But Texas wants you, anyway!
Nobody writes songs about New Mexico, Arizona, or our home state, Washington. But we found plenty about Texas! After Lyle Lovett came the Austin Lounge Lizards, singing “One more stupid song about Texas” and Clarence Gatemouth Brown, singing “They kicked me out of Texas, like a dog without a bone.”
And finally, David Lindley seemed to sing about our specific Texas adventures, in his “Texas Tango”:
When I was driving to El Paso, that’s when my truck ran out of gas-o
I fought a man to get that gas-o, as I was driving to El Paso
OK, this was actually after we left El Paso. I forgot to flip the switch on the gas tank, and we ran dry in a godforsaken parking lot in the Guadalupe Mountains. For 10 minutes, I tried to restart the engine, cranking and cranking and wondering if we would end up sleeping in this parking lot. Meanwhile, a park ranger sat in his truck at the other end of the empty parking lot, staring at us. What was wrong with these strange people in the big blue van with the weird wooden box on top? Should he call for a tow truck? I finally got the air out of the lines, started the engine on the second tank, and we drove away, waving at him sheepishly.
I met a man in Amarillo, he made me wrestle his gorillo,
He fluffed me up just like a pillow, as I was down in Amarillo.
This refers to the hours we spent circling Amarillo, looking for a place to sleep. Many motels advertised sub-$30 rates, but those rooms were never available when we asked. We finally gave up and drove about 20 miles east, to an interchange with an old but clean motel. No gorillos, just a penny-pinching innkeeper.
In the morning, we awoke and discovered that luck actually was with us: We were on old Route 66. And right outside our motel was, not Cadillac Ranch (we’d seen that 15 years ago), but Bug Ranch, five Volkswagen Bugs buried, nose end down (that would be the trunk on a Bug, right?) in the dirt. Even the graffiti was pretty, so we took lots of pictures and enjoyed this little find before we took off down the road.
Our next stop won’t involve recorded music, it will involve the Real Thing. Stay tuned, as we get our Kicks on Route 66!

“Pull up iTunes,” Barry said, as we were driving. “There’s a particular song by Brave Combo I want to hear. You can guess which one.”

We were a few miles south of Roswell, New Mexico, and I knew exactly which one he wanted:

I wanna see a flying saucer, I wanna see a flying saucer.
I wanna see it land in front of my car,
Or fly in formation over my back yard,
Carry me off to the nearest star,
I wanna see a flying saucer, I wanna see a flying saucer!

We stopped for breakfast in Roswell, and the place seemed pretty normal. There were no green-skinned aliens in the restaurant, just a lot of silver-haired humans. Our waitress was an efficient woman who looked to be in her late 30’s.

One of the two regulars at the next table asked the waitress a seemingly innocuous question about siblings, and she matter-of-factly answered, “I don’t know anything about my brothers or sisters. My Dad died when I was real young, and I guess my Mom had a lot of kids. I came down with TB, and it didn’t look like I was gonna make it. So she took me to the hospital. But, you know, she never came back to get me.”

She refilled their coffee cups and then turned away to the kitchen, leaving the fellows speechless.

After breakfast, Barry and I walked down Main Street, counting no fewer than seven stores selling only alien souvenirs. Most of them were run by silver-haired ladies, one of whom sat knitting behind a counter full of alien heads and spaceship jewelry.

If there was ever a town that took a theme and ran it into the ground, it was Roswell. We laughed out loud at the creative and humorous t-shirts, mouse pads, and bumper stickers — we bought one that shows a picture of an alien and a crashed spaceship and says, “How’s my driving?” Many of the shops had 8-foot inflatable aliens out front. One was wearing an apron that said “Alien: The other gray meat.” A Coke machine in the center of town showed an alien drinking Coke.

We went into the International UFO Museum and Research Center, expecting to spend an hour or two, but came out over three hours later. The exhibits were pretty amateur, but the wealth of clippings related to the Roswell incident were fascinating. If you aren’t familiar with the story, in 1947, a local rancher found the remnants of a strange flying craft that had crashed on his land. Accounts differ as to whether all four green-skinned aliens were dead, or if one of them was still alive. Anyway, he told the sheriff, who told the Air Force, and they came out to see it.

Suddenly, the military decided to hush up the incident, telling the rancher and everyone who knew about it that it was merely a weather balloon. But they supposedly used some pretty strong-arm tactics, and the rancher never spoke of the incident after their treatment of him. Others who were involved would only tell their spaceship and green alien stories 40 or 50 years later.

Of course, the actual wreckage of the ship vanished into the hands of the military, never to be seen again. So there’s no physical proof, only a lot of stories, some that agree and some that conflict, documented 50 years after the fact.

There are enough stories of the military cover-up, I’ll accept that part of the story as true. But what were they covering up? If it wasn’t a spaceship, surely it would be declassified by now? Not special technology or materials; that sort of thing has been surpassed many times over in 60 years. Not a political thing; the Soviets aren’t even our enemies any more. Maybe it really was a spaceship!

Of course, as I worked my way through the exhibits and got to the panels about close encounters of the first, second, and third kind, it became much more difficult to take any of this stuff seriously. The displays showing removal of alien implants destroyed any last shreds of credibility.

My favorite parts? Photos of crop circles, a collection of alien cartoons, and the gift shop, where I succumbed to an impulse purchase: Ankle socks with with little green alien heads all over them. Just the thing to wear to a restaurant with a giant sign reading “Aliens Welcome.”

When we told our friends we’d be driving the southern route across the US, we asked them for recommendations. One kept coming up over and over again: Carlsbad Caverns.

Along the west coast, each person asked what our next stop would be. The answer was always someone’s name — Todd, Jeannie, Michael, Jo, Bonnie. But when we reached Bonnie and Chuck, our next friends were a thousand miles away, so the answer was “Carlsbad Caverns.”

“Have you seen Karchner Caverns?” Bonnie and Chuck asked. Sure, Carlsbad was worth seeing, but they really recommended Karchner. “A couple of guys discovered it, and they kept it a secret for years.” We were intrigued and had to see this “secret cave.”

Karchner is very special; it’s a “live” cave where speleothems (stalactites, stalagmites, etc.) are still growing. Two 20-somethings found it in 1974, and they kept the cave, which they called “Xanadu,” a secret for 14 years, until the State of Arizona made it a park. It was a huge risk — if the secret got out, vandals would destroy the delicate formations, but how to keep it a secret when the state legislature would have to vote to make it a park?

It required tricky politics and negotiation, done in the late 1980’s when the legislature was distracted by the impeachment of Arizona’s governor. At the last minute, everything came together, and they told the legislature what was going on, got the bill signed, and sent a 24-hour guard to the entrance.

Then came a tricky job of designing access to the park. Working with a mining company, they created long tunnels with many airlocked doors and a special misting system to keep lint and dander to a minimum. These were based on lessons learned from other caverns, like Carlsbad, where the elevator changed the airflow so much that it nearly “killed” the cave.

It took millions of dollars, and many years, but the result is unbelievable. You can only see Karchner through a guided tour. Each day, 500 people can see the Rotunda Room and Throne Room, and in the winter, 250 can also see the Big Room. As a result, tours are usually sold out.

We got up super-early on April 15th and were the second folks in line for tickets. When offered an 8:20 tour, the fellow ahead of us declined and took the 11:15. We wanted to see both parts of the cave, so we got both sets of tickets.

After all this hype, imagine our surprise at 8:20 am, when we found that the first tour of the day consisted of just ourselves and a guide! Although the cave is usually sold out, the early morning and late afternoon tours don’t always fill up. Our guide, Susan was pleased, because a smaller group can really experience the cave’s magic.

Words cannot describe the beautiful formations we saw in Karchner. And pictures can’t, either — when you go into the cave, you aren’t allowed to carry anything, not a camera or purse or water bottle. So the experience was fleeting but precious, and we just soaked up all the delicious-looking formations with our eyes.

For example, there were cave bacon and fried eggs. The formations ranged from pure white to deep red, with pink and orange and beige and brown. There was no sound but silence and dripping, which is the process that forms the speleothems. When a droplet fell on my shoulder, Susan told us that’s called a “cave kiss.” It’s considered good luck.

There were dramatic draperies and huge columns, and helictites, which one of the cave discoverers called “crazy linguini.” And at the end of the tour, we just sat and looked at Kubla Khan, a 58-foot tall column, more elaborate than any sculpture carved by a human.

As promised, we had a magical, quiet time in the cave. When Susan opened the final door, I was a little shocked to see the crowd standing outside the door, waiting for the next tour. To them, Karchner is something you see in a group of 20 people with a guide explaining it, not a magical, silent expedition into the earth.

At least I was prepared for the group size when we returned for our 11:15 tour of the Big Room. The formations were different, and we learned more about the female bats who come there in the summer to have their pups. The guide for our group, Theresa, was a little sad — this would be her last tour through the Big Room until it reopened in the fall. Both of our guides had a strong emotional connection with the cave, which they view as a living entity.

Partway through the tour, we had stopped to listen to Theresa when suddenly a child standing in the middle of the group created a very large puddle that ran down his legs, into his sandals, and onto the path. We stared at the guide, wondering what she would do with this calamity — would urine irrevocably damage some delicate formations? She told us that the path we were standing on was actually designed with special curbs, and that they actually washed it every day anyway to remove all traces of people. Theresa calmly reported a “bio spill” on nearby telephone, and in a little while, an employee came and washed away the evidence.

I wished there was some way I could take pictures of Karchner’s beautiful formations with me, which is how I ended up in the gift shop, buying a book on the story of the cave’s discovery and how it became a state park. The book has lots of photos of the formations, and it answered many of my questions about how it all happened.

One of the two founders, Gary Tennen, still visits the cave every month or so, but Randy Tufts passed away a few years back. Randy had a strong spiritual connection to the cave, and when he entered, he would bow to the cave god and ask for its blessing. Although the park is named after the Mormon rancher whose family sold the land to the state, it is Randy’s spirit that is preserved in the cave itself, especially on a lucky day in spring when I chanced to see it with only my husband and a tour guide.

As for Carlsbad Caverns, we visited that, too. It’s an awe-inspiring cave, huge and full of formations with names like “the hall of giants,” and “the cave man.” But after Karchner, Carlsbad seemed a bit faded. We hiked down the natural entrance, and then we took a tour of the King’s Palace, the Papoose Room, and the Queen’s Chamber. At one point, the guide said proudly that five percent of the cave is still “alive,” I rolled my eyes. “That means it’s 95 percent dead!” I whispered to Barry.

Carlsbad was discovered in the end of the 19th century, and the discoverer had a hard time getting anyone to pay attention to his find. He finally found someone who was interested — the guy wanted to mine the valuable bat guano for fertilizer. Finally, he got a photographer to come into the cave, and once the images were published in the New York Times, the Natural Park Service became interested.

But they didn’t know how to preserve the cave, and when they put the elevator in, it was the death-knell for many speleothems. The 700-foot deep shaft completely changed the airflow in the cave. Then they ripped out a lot of formations, so they could hold weddings and chamber of commerce meetings. They aimed bright lights at the formations, causing algae to grow on them. On top of that, they put in a lunchroom and some bathrooms.

Despite all the evidence of human damage, the shapes were amazing. We dawdled for hours in the Big Room, taking enough photos to make up for Karchner. At first, we felt guilty for taking flash pictures. Then we got out the tripod and used the cave’s lighting system, which made for more dramatic pictures anyway. Tourists rushed by us, audio devices pressed to their ears, stopping only when a sign pointed out a particular named formation. We would often have 10 or 15 minutes to ourselves with the cave.

Our two caving experiences couldn’t be more different. One was precious, jewel-like, saved only in the images in our memories. The other was big and overwhelming, but it resulted in some fantastic cave photography. And at the end of the day, at Carlsbad, we saw the famous bats coming out of the natural entrance, and guess what? Photographs were not permitted — electronics create sounds that interfere with bats’ navigational abilities. So, at Carlsbad, too, there’s a part that is precious, unchanged, and saved only in our memories.