Transcontinental journey across North America

¶ … journey around America in the middle of the spring, hoping to enjoy everything as it was becoming fresh and new. While most of my journey was confined to the United States, I did visit some of Canada. Along my way, I encountered a variety of different people and traditions, which led me to question my previous assumptions about what it means to be an American. I discovered that the answer to that question is different depending on location, but that the essence of Americans remains the same. http://maps.yahoo.com/#q11=san%20francisco,%20ca&q10=salt%20lake%20city,%20ut&q9=white%20sands,%20nm&q8=carlsbad,%20nm&q7=san%20antonio,%20tx&q6=Beaumont,%20TX&q5=little%20rock,%20arkansas&q4=chicago,%20il&q3=montreal,%20ca&q2=woodstock,%20nh&q1=boston,%20ma&trf=0&mvt=m&lon=-96.723633&lat=37.474858&mag=

Of all of the locations in the United States, Boston seemed to be the most appropriate location to begin a cross-country tour. While Boston may not be the oldest city in the United States, it is the birthplace of the American Revolution and that revolutionary character still permeates Boston today. In order to get a flavor of the American Revolution, I visited the Freedom Trail, which celebrates noted locations and events in the American Revolution. I was able to get a much greater understanding of the American Revolution, which is no surprise given that much of the war was waged around the Boston area. I also wanted to enjoy one of the more unique aspects of Boston life, so I began my cross-country tour in April, when I was able to enjoy the swan boats in the Boston Public Garden Lagoon. Though it was only early spring, the garden was incredible, and the bulbs were bursting in an explosion of color. You could see glimpses of the flowers from the lagoon, and I felt like something out of a fairytale, riding in a swan along flower-lined banks. My final Boston event was a cultural one, which is no surprise because Boston is renowned for its culture; I went to see the Boston Pops orchestra. Although I was exposed to more tourists than Bostonians, I did get to experience some of the New England culture, and was surprised to discover that the Boston accent is as strong as it is depicted in movies and on TV. To really get to meet the locals, I went to a pub that had been recommended by a friend who grew up in Boston. I was able to observe actual Bostonians, but felt as if they were very insulated from me. It made me understand something about the TV show Cheers, because regulars were greeted warmly and with friendship, but I was treated with something akin to suspicion.

From Boston, I went to visit my first national park, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont. I felt that this park really captured the nature of Vermont, because it celebrated conservation and is, in fact, one of the oldest sustainable woodlands in the United States. It was barely spring in the park, and things were just beginning to become green and beautiful. The park had a mountain in it, and I was able to hike paths along it and observe young wildlife. Another interesting and noteworthy aspect of the park is its proximity to Woodstock. I should have expected it, but I was actually surprised to encounter a few aging hippies visiting the park with their grandchildren. They had actually attended the original Woodstock, and we spent some time discussing Hendrix's groundbreaking performance there. As a member of a younger generation, I simply equated Woodstock with incredible music, but they described it in a different manner, saying that many of them had believed that Woodstock would help usher in an era of social change, which was driven by the arts. The conversation with them was illuminating, but sad; because it seemed as if the hope and promise that they had at that time had died in the interim. What I found the most remarkable was how the park captured the beauty of the Vermont countryside. http://www.nps.gov/mabi/planyourvisit/the-forest.htm

Next I traveled outside of the United States to visit Montreal. The most striking thing about Montreal was the fact that it is a French-speaking city. In fact, it is the largest French-speaking city in the Western hemisphere. I was also surprised by how chilly and wet it was. However, even though it rained, Montreal also had a tremendous amount of sunshine. The combination of the tremendous amounts of rain and the tremendous amounts of sunshine left me with an interesting impression of Montreal, and I believe that I will always think of it as a city of rainbows. The city's architectural details reflected its French background, and I found myself feeling as if I were in Europe, rather than in the Americas. In Montreal I met several Canadians. Many of them spoke English, and I was struck by how polite they were. I wanted to enjoy the gorgeous weather, so I went to Montreal on Wheels, where I rented rollerblades and traveled on Montreal's bike trails. I also went to Montreal's underground city, a series of tunnels connecting buildings, which is sometimes referred to as Montreal's second city. The alternative ways to get around the city struck me as very interesting, because it made the city much less automobile-dependent than U.S. cities of comparable size.

After Montreal, I decided to travel south to Chicago. Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States, so I was prepared for an urban area. However, I was still surprised by how large Chicago is and how advanced. Chicago boasted an even more impressive skyline than New York City, perhaps because it has the highest skyline in the world, even though it no longer hosts the world's tallest building. Another notable aspect of Chicago is the fact that its cities are organized in a grid-pattern, which made navigating Chicago easy for a visitor. Chicago is for many synonymous with the blues, and I spent time investigating some of the city's smaller blues joints, listening to the legendary music. In those places I met musicians from around the world, who had traveled to Chicago to share in the city's musical past. I also found a sharp contrast between these locations and the rest of the city. The blues bars played host to people of all races, while many other areas of Chicago appeared plagued by a lingering de-facto segregation, which left me uncomfortable. I wondered why the city was so segregated, because it is not located in the Deep South, which is the location I always associated with segregation. However, a Chicago resident explained to me that many African-Americans migrated to Chicago from the Deep South, and that the sheer size of the exodus exacerbated pre-existing racial tensions and those racial tensions continue to exist in much of the modern-day Chicago. Of course, I could not visit Chicago without watching a baseball game. Perhaps more than any other city in the world, Chicago is known for its sports teams and its almost fanatical sports fans, and Wrigley Field is famous among baseball fans. There was something almost magical about watching a game in the famed stadium. In fact, it made me think that some of the newer stadiums are stealing the magic from baseball, by making baseball a cookie-cutter experience, instead of the unique experience that watching a game in a place like Wrigley Field. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ballpark/index.jsp

From Chicago, I ventured southwest towards San Antonio. On the way there, I decided to visit two national parks. First, I decided to visit the Little Rock Central High School National Historical Site. As much as I love America, the fact is that an extremely ugly racism has played a major role in the history of the United States. Little Rock Central High School played a major role in the African-American struggle for civil rights. It was at this park that I saw some of the best and worst of the United States. At the park, I witnessed a group of children of all races on a field trip, learning about the struggle for integration. Seeing those young children, chaperoned by an African-American teacher, I really appreciated the strides that have been made in the struggle for racial equality. However, I also witnessed a man accost another pair of tourists, a mixed-race couple, and tell them they were sinning. From what I could grasp from the interaction, this man actually spent a large part of his time at the monument, waiting for the opportunity to accost African-Americans in some manner. I found that part of my visit the most interesting because it captured something about the United States that many of us are absolutely unwilling to acknowledge, which is that our country continues to be plagued by serious social problems that stem from race and clash classes rooted in decisions made centuries before now. It made me think that, as great as America is, the country will never live up to its potential until it actually addresses and deals with the uglier aspects of its history.

From Little Rock to San Antonio, I had the opportunity to pass through Texas. I had some stereotypical images of Texas in my mind and was expecting images from the TV show Dallas, or to notice tumbleweeds passing through a parched desert. However, when I visited Big Thicket National Preserve, I got an entirely different view of Texas, which actually seems to capture the essence of the state. Driving through Texas, I learned that it is an incredibly biologically diverse land, and nowhere is this biological diversity more evident than in the Big Thicket. At the park I learned that the Big Thicket has an extremely unusual level of biological diversity, and actually represents almost all of the major North American geography types including swamps, forests, deserts, and plains. I was lucky enough to see some of the alligators that populate the park, but which are rarely seen by people. I also met some "hunters" who were at the preserve hoping to photograph some of the rarer wildlife in the park: black panthers. The problem is that the panther population is not large, and they are not seen reliably at any set location in the park. These photographers also hoped to catch sight of a black bear. Black bears once populated the area of the Big Thicket, but are not widely believed to live there in modern times. However, according to these photographers, they have heard rumors of existing black bears in the Big Thicket, and are hoping to get proof of them. Those photographers may not be correct, but if they are right and black bears have returned to the Big Thicket, such a sign would be tremendously hopeful and would demonstrate the power of good stewardship in nature conservation. http://www.nps.gov/bith

My next destination was San Antonio, which proved to be a tremendously interesting and diverse location. The first thing I noticed about San Antonio is that the city itself seemed to have multiple personalities. These personalities were evident as I drove into San Antonio. My approach included a portion of the Texas Hill Country, and my visit coincided with the end of wildflower season. Though they were fading and the state's legendary bluebonnets were no longer in evidence, I was overwhelmed by the immense fields of Indian Paintbrushes and buttercups that dotted the landscape. Closer to the city, I noticed patches of a more arid landscape, which spoke to me of west Texas and promised a hint of Mexico. These competing elements really helped introduce me to San Antonio, which really blended several cultures: American, Mexican, and the very distinct culture that is Texan. I had heard about San Antonio's famed river walk, and I chose to stay at a hotel which literally spanned part of the river. One thing I learned is that the Riverwalk was largely man-made; it is actually along a diversion from the river, so that it is fed by natural water, but is mostly a man-made waterway. I walked among the tourist area, enjoying the outdoor atmosphere and basking in some Texas hospitality. Walking along the area, browsing the stores, and taking a boat down the river, I could picture myself living in the city. I extended my stay in San Antonio to visit two other famous tourist attractions: Sea World and Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Like most amusement parks, these two lacked any actual local flair, and could have been anywhere. However, they were enjoyable. It was also interesting to be at a Six Flags park that was actually located in Texas, which has actually been under six flags: Spain, France, Mexico, Texas, United States, and the Confederacy. I also took the opportunity to visit the San Antonio missions, the most famous of which is the Alamo. The missions represented first the Spanish, then the Mexican efforts to convert Native Americans in Texas to Catholicism, as a means of exerting European and European-American influence over the region. As much history as I learned in Boston, I never realized that Americans had actually fought more than one revolution, and I was fascinated and galvanized to learn the story of the historic and heroic stand at the Alamo. http://www.flickr.com/photos//454480332/

From San Antonio, I traveled northwest towards New Mexico, where I visited two national parks in New Mexico: Carlsbad Caverns National Park and White Sands National Monument. My first stop was Carlsbad Caverns. Prior to visiting them, I had been in some smaller underground caverns, but I was unprepared for the enormous caves that I encountered. Surprisingly, I learned that Carlsbad Cavern is actually only one of the caverns at the national park, which actually contains hundreds of caves of varying sizes. The first thing I did was tour the main part of the cavern, which is extremely accessible to the public. The various stalactite and stalagmite formations were incredible, both in size and in the fact that they had been forming for thousands of years. I was also overwhelmed by the sheer number of bats that lived in the caves and watched as they left in the evening. The most entertaining part of my trip may have been watching the bats' flight, because of a group of people that I met. I watched the bats with a family from Ohio, and the mother, Laura, was scared of the bats. She had promised the children that she would watch the flight, but she covered up her eyes. The kids and her husband were squealing and laughing at her, as Laura freaked out as the bats flew away. We were watching from a little bit of a distance, and the bats did not actually come near us, so she was in no real danger. The funny part came when the youngest child began to act up, and Laura immediately stopped her panic and put him in a time out. For the entire duration of his time out, Laura was calm, cool, and collected. As soon as his time-out was over, she once again lapsed into the panic.

At Carlsbad Caverns, I also decided to investigate some of the less-traveled parts of the park. I went on several of the guided tours, which included investigations of smaller caverns and hikes into the countryside. Feeling adventurous, I also decided to try going into some of the very small caves. I was fortunate to meet up with a group of experienced spelunkers, who took me into one of the easier to navigate small caves. It was fascinating to see the stalactites and stalagmites in the smaller caves, some of which looked like the large cave in miniature. It was even more amazing to see the teamwork that people engaged in to tackle an unknown.

The next place I visited was White Sands. When planning my road trip, I learned that White Sands contained an immense stretch of white sand. I honestly did not think it would be that impressive of a park, because it was simply a stretch of extremely light sand and desert. However, there is something very breathtaking and disorienting about a white sand desert; it seems to go on forever in each direction. It was also incredibly hot; the light sand reflected sunlight back from the grounds' surface, and I found myself imaging the horror and disorientation I would have felt if I had found myself in this desert 100 years ago. Of course, part of any visit to White Sands has to include the limited observation of the missile range. The White Sands missile range is a famous test location for army development of weapons. I had never been anywhere near a military testing facility and the level of security impressed me with the gravity of what they were doing at that facility.

The next city that I visited was Salt Lake City. It is impossible to visit Salt Lake City without mentioning its religious background, because religion continues to play a pivotal role in the modern city. Salt Lake City was founded by Brigham Young and a group of Mormon pioneers, who were escaping religious persecution. At the time, Salt Lake City was outside of the United States. The city has maintained a connection with the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Salt Lake City is the modern headquarters of the Church. Because of the strong connection between Salt Lake City and the LDS Church, I found the visit to Salt Lake City to be very similar to a visit to Vatican City. Of course, there were substantial differences; though the city was founded under Mormonism, it is a city in the modern United States and is not a separate national entity. Furthermore, I was surprised to find that the city was extremely liberal. Though I missed June's gay-pride parade, I was informed that Salt Lake City has a thriving homosexual community and has more accepting policies towards homosexuals than many cities thought of as more progressive. However, there was some tension in the city's political scene, which I learned about by reading the local paper. Mormons believed that the city's liberal politicians were biased against them and their more traditional ways. Non-Mormons alleged that the city's politicians favor LDS interests. There is no denying that the city celebrates its origins, which are based in the LDS. I was in Salt Lake City to celebrate Pioneer Day on July 24th. Pioneer day celebrates the founding of the city, or actually the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers in the area. The celebration includes a number of parades, a rodeo, and a fireworks display. Of the parades, I was most struck by the Days of '47 Parade. It is a very large parade, and features traditional parade aspects like marching bands and parade floats. In fact, one of the neatest things that I did in my visit to Salt Lake City was to attend the parade preview party. There I was able to look at the floats that would be the different parades, and I was even able to vote on my favorite float.