You'll be fine.
[Do NOT watch the trailer. I would have linked it, but as with all trailers these days, it tells way too much. Why spoil it for yourself? If you are a horror fan, it's better to just experience the movie fresh. And if you are decidedly not a horror fan, please don't watch this movie, ever.]
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| Big Hill next to my campsite. |
I've always been afraid of depths--the more you learn about the ocean, the more you start involuntarily kicking and run into a wall. The Descent is about lunatics who think it's a great idea to go spelunking. Spelunking, if you are not familiar with it, is the act of deliberately submerging oneself into caverns under the earth. Caverns that turn into hollows that turn into tight tunnels that may or may not suddenly collapse on you. The Descent is a movie made specifically for the likes of people like me. No thank you, depths, that's a hard pass, caverns, truck off and fly, tiny tunnels of terror.
So when I first started learning about sinkholes, you can imagine how my mind processed that information. A hole. That just opens up. Under you. SIGN ME UP. Drag Me Down. To Hell. Considering the chaos of the universe, with ice comets, gas planets, and no air, such tomfoolery as sinkholes sounds tame and we should all consider ourselves lucky and get over it. But still, how could this be allowed to happen?
But happen it does! One opened up just down the block from my apartment in Brooklyn some years back and it took months for them to fix it. There was no warning. One day there was a tree, the next day there was no tree. And there was a hole. A hole that did not look all that impressive, really, and nothing like the sinkholes you've seen in other places, but apparently this thing went super deep and it took and incredible amount of work to shore everything up, stop the water flow that caused it in the first place, and fill in what started as a "tiny" hole (that eventually filled the street and went 70 feet deep).  |
| Other campers and sites. |
As they repaired the sinkhole, I would worry about it, but figured since I was on the 6th floor I'd probably be okay unless a sinkhole developed under a corner or half of the building and it just tipped over and went smack into the street and other buildings...and in that case I probably wouldn't be worrying about anything anymore. I believe earthquakes cause the same kind of anxiety in people because buildings can and do collapse. We've all seen the stories of people being pulled alive out of the rubble days after an event.
My fear isn't the dying part. It's the waiting to die part. When I watched The Descent the first time, there was a scene that played directly to my fears. It grabbed that nerve like a guitar string and twanged it until it snapped. The idea of being trapped in a close space with no hope of escape or survival, and just waiting to die...for God knows how long? It's a common horror theme--people being buried alive, bricked in behind walls. All scary stuff, but there's something about terra firma suddenly going terra liquidus that just spooks the hell out of me. Like, drop kick me out of a plane, bungee me off of the Royal Gorge, make me feed hotwings to a gator. Anything but being submerged under the earth.
So, the Bottomless Lakes are sinkholes! Probably formed thousands of years ago and totally stable and safe. But don't think that wasn't part of the charm of visiting this place and setting up camp right next to one, Lea Lake. It's a dare thing, I'll turn my back on you thing, a double guns into the sun thing. The worst part of Bottomless Lakes wasn't the sinkhole specter, it was the damn insects. They were ever present during the day, but became a true menace as the sun started to set, and even though I covered myself in insect repellent, some of them still managed to get to me. Gnats, mosquitoes, horseflies, regular flies, dragonflies--it was a mess.
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| In the tent. |
It was only in the dark of night, with my tent zipped up, snugged into the sleeping bag, all lanterns off and stowed away, that I started thinking about those lakes...and sinkholes...and unpredictability. I imagined a giant cavern below the lakes, with only a thin layer of soil separating the lake and the cavern, worn thinner over thousands of years of erosion...until finally. What kind of sound would that make, I wonder? FOOMP? Or perhaps a horrible sucking noise? I could see myself asleep in my tent, on my air mattress set firmly on the hard ground, then weightless and falling hundreds of feet-
Well, I locked that shit up right there. My therapist says I am a catastrophic thinker. This is no lie. Whenever I start down that path, I visualize a stop sign and realign my perspective to reality. And it worked.
The lakes are beautiful and roundular, and setting up camp was much easier this time around. The wind was calmer, as well, so I was finally able to break out my Coleman butane stove and make coffee which took forever but who cares because I DID IT I MADE THE COFFEE. I will likely make the coffee again when I am at Grand Canyon or Joshua Tree, but it was still something I was way too overproud about because I've never worked a whole gas stove contraption by myself (gas grills, with help, always--I can turn them on but the tanks make me nervous).
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| Lea Lake |
The camp itself was very bare, not like Big Bend, but the bathrooms were a huge improvement, with more stalls and free showers that were set up perfectly so you wouldn't get your stuff wet and felt safe while you were in there. It was a very chill camping experience--I spent most of the time reading. I think I mentioned before that I kept about 5 books? One of them is called Fools Crow by James Welch. I kind of wish I'd saved it for the second leg of my trip when I will be in Montana near the area where the book is set. It was funny, however, that on the second day in Bottomless Lakes, a smell came over the campground--a not entirely grotesque smell if you're a horticulturist or even just an amateur, and certainly nothing special if you work with large animals, especially in the equine/bovine arena. It was dung, I thought maybe fertilizer, or perhaps just the breeze had changed and we were now downwind of a farm or ranch. (I hoped it wasn't some sort of septic tank situation, but it turned out the smell was all over Roswell the next day, too, so I'm betting on a large herd of animals nearby but unseen). Since there is a lot of buffalo hunting, hide skinning, and horse stealing (and riding) in the book, the odor added to the authenticity of the experience. Weird, I know, but true.
Being near Roswell, I had my tinfoil hat at the ready and watched the skies for the inevitable alien driveby. You can tell me it didn't happen, but IT DID IT DID. I can see how people think aliens landed here and continue to land here. I have never seen more bizarre cloud structures in all my life. Better yet, these cloud structures refuse to be photographed accurately, so even though you may see a baby xenomorph as plain as day in one...
...it just looks blobular when you try to capture it. CONSPIRACY? I think so. Or how about when I was talking to my mom and saw some perfectly shaped saucers and had to stop to take a picture but later you could not see them? Do you see any saucers?
They are, in fact, there. SEE.
It's the cloaking device. They don't want you to see them. But they are there. I also saw freaky tendril clouds that reminded me of Cthulhu (our Pasta, who art in Colander...) -- honestly, if you are a person who truly "wants to believe," New Mexico is the place to kickstart your extraterrestrial fantasies. I, for one, don't need to "believe" or have "faith." I know. The universe is for all intents and purposes infinite, therefore intelligent life on other planets exists. This isn't even a difficult question. Math people can tell you the odds. And don't even start with that, waaahhh then why haven't they visited us waaahh. Watch news programming for 30 minutes and ask me that again. You will get what you richly deserve, inhabitant of Dangerous Monkey Planet.
I do have things to say about Roswell itself, and its gorgeous library, but I am still processing that one a bit. I may post today, maybe tomorrow, and maybe in the writing I will be able to adequately (and diplomatically) express my impression of the place.
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