Capulin Volcano, New Mexico to Home:Perhaps I Should Have Stayed On Vaca

It is easy to overlook the big picture when wrapped up in the day to day of our lives. We get lost in life’s mishaps and feel like we are trapped in quicksand.  None of our lives are ideal, and the daily grind can be exhausting.

I can honestly say my daily grind is full of adventure. It doesn’t seem to matter what the agenda is for the day, something always happens to keep my life interesting. I love my life not because everything goes right, but because everything goes entirely wrong. It’s a comical life, the type you see on those sitcoms where big mishaps take place but everything always ends up alright in the end. This sort of thing isn’t limited to Hollywood: I live it.

Today is a perfect example of my disastrous, wonderfully compelling thing called life.

I slept in a little bit and took my time getting ready, enjoying the free breakfast the hotel offered. I have to admit I’m a sucker for those Belgian waffles that hotels offer. In fact, when I reserve a hotel I check the description to see if the hotel offers the Belgian waffles before I decide if I am going to book that hotel or not. Ridiculous? Maybe for anyone else, but not for me.


I started my drive to Capulin Volcano National park, which was only a short 30 minute drive, and a tiny 1 mile detour from the path home. I took the turn towards the volcano and drive over a cattle grid, past a yellow caution sign that neither warns of deer, or that cartoon Elk I had observed all over Arizona two days ago. It warns me of free range cattle.

Sure enough as I travel down the highway, covered lightly in snow from the night before, there is a small herd of cattle standing in the middle of the road. Behind them stands a second cattle grid that would signify my freedom of the very cattle that stood in my way. I was traveling very slow because of the snow and ice, so I crept up on the herd of cattle expecting them to move as they saw me approaching them. Most animals get scared when a large, red object that rivals the size of an elephant approaches them. Not these guys.

As I get close they continue to stand there, staring at me. I slowed down even more, inching forward now, and they still don’t move. I was now only feet away so I touched the brakes to stop. The snow, however, had something else in mind. Despite the ceased rotation of my tires my car continued forward, sliding straight into 2-3 of the cattle that stood there looking at me in stupor.

CLUNK

CLUNK

CLUNK.

I bump into them, the cattle stumble and bounce away as they realize my car wasn’t friendly.

I sat in my car for a little bit, stunned. Had I really just hit some cows? Really?

I look over and see that a farm truck was sitting in the field to my right. I get out and check my car- all is ok, just some hair from the cows was plastered to the bumper with the moisture from melted snow. I look around for the cattle to make sure I didn’t hurt them and they all seem ok as they stare at me in disbelief of my violent greeting from a safe distance.

The farmer, who had been parked in his truck in the field, gets out and his two cattle dogs come with him as he asks if I’m ok. I reply that everything seems to be ok and I ask if he thinks the cows are ok. After both of us concluding I wasn’t going fast enough to hurt anything, and him explaining the cattle have the right of way and I need to be careful, we have small chat about the weather and the volcano. He tells me that the view from atop Capulin is definitely worth the drive. After petting his dogs and apologizing for running into his cows I get back in my car, parked in the middle of the road, and drive towards the volcano.

Upon reentering my vehicle and putting it back in drive I immediately begin laughing. Hysterically.

Only I could have this many mishaps on a 10 day vacation.

I get to the visitor center and pay the $5 entrance fee. Why is it that some of the most exciting places to visit charge so little, such as the beaches and Carlsbad, yet the Grand Canyon and Meteorite Crater are so ridiculously overpriced?

After watching the short informative video on Capulin, which informs me that all of the mountains in northeastern New Mexico were originally volcanoes, I go to pickup my postcards to send back home as I had at most of my major stops. I’m the only one in the visitor center and I’m looking at some books. I pick up one on geology and it somehow flips out of my hand and through the air and I catch it before it has the chance to get back to the ground. I laugh, the lady behind the counter laughs, and I put it back on the shelf.

“Yeah, that’s how my day started”. I laugh as I once again run the fresh image of the cattle bouncing away from my car after being hit.

We have a good conversation about volcanoes. I tell her about the jar of ashes I have from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens and she mentions that she has a Christmas ornament that is made from the same ashes. We talk about different things, including the volcano that erupted at the beginning of my journey, a world away. It’s nice talking to a guide that is educated in geology, it isn’t something you find everywhere. I leave the visitor’s center to drive up the swirling road to the top of Capulin Volcano.


Capulin Volcano is a cinder cone that erupted only about 60,000 years ago, which is relatively young in geological terms. It rises over 8,000 feet above sea level, and the crater is 400 feet deep. The road that spirals up to the rim of the volcano is 2 miles long, swirling up thousands of feet often without a guardrail. A little scary considering the road is still covered in light snow on the shaded side of the volcano where the sun has yet to melt it away. I drive carefully, the incident of the cattle massacre fresh in my mind.

I reached the top to find I wasn’t the only crazy tourist willing to risk their life to see a monument to geological history. There were two other cars up top, and the view from there was spectacular. You could see for miles and miles. The vegetation that covers the cinder cone (which is unusual for a volcano of it’s age, many don’t get so densely populated so quickly) is all covered in delicate frost crystals that move in the breeze like small feathers. Looking down into the crater you can see lots of volcanic rock that has accumulated there from it’s previous explosion.

I slowly descend the 400’ along the paved path, covered in snow and ice, to reach the bottom of the crater. I get there and look up, the view is pretty cool having the walls of the crater all around you. A couple is down in the crater as well taking some pictures. I take my picture by using a sign post as a camera stand. The couple offers to take my picture for me, but after reviewing the picture I had taken right before and seeing that it was alright I thank them for the offer, but decline.

I leave Capulin, paying special attention to the road for cattle. Along the side of the road on the way out is an old abandoned house sitting on top of cinderblocks as if someone had moved it there planning on building it a foundation but never got around to it. I wouldn’t mind living there, I think to myself.
The drive back home wasn’t planned to be all too eventful. I crossed the border into Texas, a short drive through the panhandle part of the state. The sky was really pretty here, as the sun decided to come out and fluffy, white clouds dotted the sky. Then I crossed the state line into Oklahoma. I was driving along the highway when suddenly I see the all-too familiar flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror. Great.

I pull over on the side of the road and the Sheriff’s SUV patrol car pulls in behind me. He walks up to my passenger side window which is smart for two reasons: One, he isn’t standing in traffic. Two, my driver’s side window doesn’t roll down. He explains to me that I had just passed through a lower speed limit and that I was going 60 in a 45. He tells me that since I’m not from the area he will just give me a warning, but asks if I can go sit in his car while he runs my plates and license to get the all clear. I oblige and his partner gets into the backseat to allow me to sit up front.

While sitting in the patrol car waiting for them to run the plates back at the station he starts up small chat, asking where I was heading and about my trip. After a few minutes I hear a rustling in the back and turn to see a cage that I assumed to contain a drug dog since I couldn’t see behind the back seats. He says that she was a pretty good dog, very quite, which brings up conversation about the puppy I had transported to California. I tell him about the drug dog at border patrol that got excited about the smell of the puppy.

Don’t ever mention that you had to go through border patrol to an officer with a drug dog.

Never.

My plates and license, by a small miracle, come back all clear. He give me back my papers and tells me I’m good to go except for one thing. He says that the fact I had to go through border patrol perked his interest, and with his job and having a drug dog he had to ask a few questions.

“Do you have any illegal narcotics in your vehicle?”

I reply no.

“Do you have an methamphetamines, cocaine, marijuana or any drug paraphernalia in the vehicle?”

I again reply no, and tell him I don’t even have any alcohol in the vehicle.

“Will you consent to a search around your vehicle with my drug dog?”

I, of course, say yes and he asks me to remain in the car while he gets out his dog and lets her run around my car. He takes her out on a leash and walks around the drivers side, around the front, and when he reaches the passenger side his dog sticks her head in my car through the open window. She takes one sniff of the puppy carrier that is sitting in my backseat and jumps right into my car.

…I turn to his partner, who is still sitting in the SUV behind me, and explain that I forgot to mention my passenger car door doesn’t open from the outside.

I watch the officer struggle with the car door, trying to get his drug dog back out of my car. He eventually figures out he needs to open it from the inside and reaches inside to pull the handle. He pulls his dog out of the car and puts her back in her kennel in the back of his patrol unit.

“Sorry about my dog jumping in…she saw that puppy carrier. Have a safe trip home”

Today is just full of laughter.

I continue my drive north towards Kansas, fresh muddy paw prints covering my laptop case and door sill. On the way out to California I had decided to take Oklahoma thinking that a toll road would be better taken care of than the interstates through southern Kansas. Since that theory turned out to be wrong, and had resulted in my disdain for Oklahoman roads, I decided to return via Kansas.

The sun setting in Kansas

Kansas is the spitting image of our preconceived notionst: A lot of flat farmland with just a few trees here and there. A funny scene was playing out in Kansas as I made my drive northeast through the state. The trees that sporadically stuck out in the terrain were all covered in a thick snow, but the ground was completely clear. I don’t know what causes this phenomenon, but it was rather interesting to see.

When I finally reached Emporia, KS I decided I was in the mood for another of the spicy chicken sandwiches. Since there are no Carl’s Jrs in this part of the country I decided to stop at it’s sister restaurant, Hardee’s, to get my spicy chicken sandwich. I even drove an extra hour and a half to stop specifically at a Hardee’s in hope to get jalapenos, knowing that Wendy’s do not carry them. When I get there they don’t have jalapenos, and they even give me the wrong chicken sandwich altogether.

Not spicy, but a grilled chicken sandwich. I was too hungry to care.

I stopped to get gas and fuel up with one last sugar free Redbull for the last stretch of my trip before I got back on the highway. The cashier gave me a discount on the Red Bull (Apparently it was on sale?) and I returned to my car to calculate my gas mileage as I did every fuel stop and zero my trip odometer. When I go to zero my trip odometer the numbers stick. GREAT. I just broke my odometer.
Like I really needed anything else to go wrong with my car.

On a brighter note, the flat plains of Kansas allowed me to get a full 26 mpg.

The drive home was like the blink of an eye after leaving Emporia. When you have driven over 4000 miles the last couple hundred seem like nothing. I reached home right around 1am, brought in my bags all in one trip and passed out.
As much as I love my journeys, it was good to be home.

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