Travel times

After about 12 straight days of non-stop team time, I have finally found a time to sit down and grab a computer at the local library here in Lafayette, LA. It's been a pretty jam packed few weeks, and it seems like I've either had too many things to juggle or had no energy to juggle them.

To start with, the trip here was by far the longest car trip I have taken in my life. I thought I was prepared for it having spent much of my childhood jammed in the back of our Taurus between Colin and Kristen on the way to northern Indiana, or lying on the floor of our Ram van trying to sleep on the way to Alabama, or having claustrophobic panic attacks crammed between the luggage in the back of the Safarri on the way home from Tybee Island, GA. This outdid prettymuch all of those. They say that the test of a relationship is to take a long car trip with someone. Well I took a 5 day car trip with 10 people and came out of it with minimal bloodshed, so I'd say we're doing alright. Unfortunately we then had to spend another full week working together non-stop without a weekend immediately afterward. As much as I love my teammates, we've all been a bit on-edge recently.

Besides the frustration that comes with the clown-car situation of NCCC, the trip had its high points. Bakersfield was very smoggy, but had a comfortable temperature. We had a heated pool with a hot tub and enjoyed a great family-style Indian meal. The landscape of California's central valley is really nice with enless expances of orchards, grape arbors, and whatnot. It's really no surprise that the area feeds most of America with how fertile it seemed. It was also interesting having just having made a presentation to my team on Cesar Chavez: we drove through Delano, home of the famous grape strike. He's a huge deal out in California and a very interesting national figure that is almost ignored back in Indiana. I guess the idea of farm worker labor organization is still a bit risque back home, especially in such an agricultural state as Indiana, but this is just speculation on my part. Either way, he's someone that I would definately encourage further research on to anyone. I guess my musing was that it was interesting that in such an agricurally rich and fertile area-- one capable of feeding a nation the size of the US-- that people who live and work there were and to some extent still are on the low rungs of society.

Moving along, we drove the next day through the Mohave Desert and into Arizona. It lasted much longer than I would have imagined, though I appreciated the change of the Arizona landscape after miles of cactus and Joshua trees. It was afternoon/evening before we got into Arizona, but worth it to see the area at that time. The soil is clay-colored and has ranchland intersperced with pine forests and red-rocked buttes the color of kilned pottery. It was frigid when we reached our hotel in Flagstaff, something I didn't expect. A few of us tried to go to the Lowell Observatory there, which was only about a half-mile up the hill our hotel was on, but it was closing as we got there. The sky was still brilliant, and I haven't seen the Milky Way in a city for as long as I can remember.

The next day was my favorite, driving through eastern Arizona into New Mexico. It finally warmed up, and the lanscape changed from a red tinge to more of an orange. We tried to stop in the Petrified Forrest of AZ, but found that they charged $45 for a vanload like ours. That was highway robbery in my mind, and previous teams I heard had gotten in for $10. Not to mudsling at the National Parks Service, but screw that. No amount of petrified trees are worth seeing for 45 bucks. Albuquerque was a hugh high point that day. The city's archetecture was something that I haven't seen elsewhere and struck me as very proud of its heritage. We had a huge lunch in Old Town at a place called Church Street Cafe. They had a chile relleno that I will never forget. The area is definately one I'm ready to go back and explore. We finally made it to Roswell late that night after burning so much time in Albuquerque. Southeast NM and West TX are really nothing to write home to mom about: flat grassland for miles.

Things didn't get interesting the next day until east Texas. It was the first I had seen of deciduous trees of the East-of-the-Rockies I had seen for a while, and they were all in a bright spring green. It rained much of the day into Dallas, but it was refreshing. Dallas was a surprise: very modern archetecture and vibrant feel about the city. I didn't really expect much, but had a good time. Had beef brisket and pulled pork for dinner. When in Rome, I guess. Hope it wasn't too touristy.

The last day into Louisiana was fairly uneventful. We tried to get back as fast as possible to set up camp at our house, a former habitat built house now used to host volunteers and NCCC teams. The landscape was much like east TX, lush with a few more marshes along the highway.

Well my time on the internet is running into its las five minutes, so I'll cut it off and post another on my last week here if I can get back on.