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The Continuing Travels of Buck "Large-Ass" Herzog


Chapter 46 - Buck Goes Spelunking


As long-time readers will know, Buck "Large-Ass" Herzog is a jet-setting, globe-hopping, adventurous baseball card (consult earlier entries in this thread for details). But until this month, he'd never been underground.

Now, Buck has been in Alabama getting some well-earned R&R. And I don't blame him, he's been on the road since 2011. But when he heard that I was going to Carlsbad Caverns, he couldn't pass up the opportunity get back in the saddle and venture out again.

My own trip had a few stops, but timing was tight and so Buck had to meet me en route. I was driving to Columbus Ohio, and had Buck mailed there. He arrived a day before I did, and we caught a plane to Texas the following afternoon.

We spent an evening in El Paso, but really only used the city as our jumping-off point to get into the desert. The plan was to go east. US 62/180 is the only major road running east of El Paso, so we filled up the tank (it's about 150 miles between gas stations) and headed out.

First stop was Hueco Tanks State Park. The directions to get there are basically to head east on US 62 and then turn left at the flying saucer. It's close to town, a few miles north of the road.

Water collects in basins around the park, and so people have been stopping there for ages. The park is probably best-known from its ancient petroglyphs, but there is also more recent (19th c.) graffiti. Mr. Wayland scratched his name into that rock about a year before Buck was born. Almost made him feel young again. (But not quite; just by coincidence we were there on Buck's 138th birthday, and 138 years is a hard thing to forget.) We did a little hiking, but the temperature was something like 107, and there's only so much good that drinking water will do for you in that kind of heat, so we didn't stay out long.

After that it was a race across the desert. Our plan was to spend the afternoon hiking in Guadeloupe Mountains National Park. It's about 90 miles between Hueco Tanks and GM, through scrubland and salt flats. Fortunately, temperature dropped a little bit with the elevation and so we did some more hiking that afternoon. There's a picture of Buck enjoying a view of the mountains. The view in the other direction, of the desert stretching out forever, is just as good.

As evening approached, we set out again, with the aim of spending the night in Carlsbad, NM. The next morning it was time to explore the cave. We took a guided tour with a ranger, and then the next day hiked down the natural entrance to look around ourselves. Buck was suitably impressed. He insisted on returning in the evening to watch the bats fly out of the cave, but photography is prohibited (and pointless anyway, it would just be a blur) when the bats are on their way out, so you'll just have to take his word for it that he was there.

Now we're back home, but Buck is itching for more adventure. I've got the world's best-traveled baseball card sitting on my shelf. If you're going somewhere, just send me a message with a trade proposal and he'll be on his way. He comes with a nice little book detailing his travels, that's waiting for its next entry.

EDIT - Buck has a couple more trips on his itinerary, and is spoken for through September. HercDriver should have him by then, so contact him if you want to arrange any travels for Buck this fall.