In Big Bend National Park, Misha finds a scorpion, learns to see in the dark and tries hiking alone for the first time.
In Big Bend, Misha learns to see in the dark, instead of running away from it out of fear. She and Jonathan go scorpion hunting, and learn about the creature from scientist Lauren Esposito. She explores the night sky with dark sky expert, Stephen Hummel, and goes back in time to when dinosaurs lived in Big Bend with scientist Lisa White. She also tries a hike alone for the first time.
Big Bend is the traditional land of the Jumanos, Lipan Apache, Coahuiltecan, Mescalero Apache and the Chiso.
More about the podcast:
Hello, Nature host, Misha Euceph, didn’t know about the National Parks until she turned 21. But after an experience in Joshua Tree and watching 12 hours of a national park documentary, she sets out on a road trip to answer the question: if the parks are public, aren’t they supposed to be for everyone? In this podcast, she goes out to see America and tell a new story of our national parks.
Hello, Nature can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Learn more about the podcast and our season sponsor, Subaru.
ACT I
Jonathan: They’re probably not gonna live where people trip, tramp around.
Misha: Are you sure?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Misha: Oh, I'm definitely not going back on the trail by myself to find scorpions in the middle of the night. Okay. Let's not go too far though. Oh, let's just like, look around here first. See if we find any scorpions they're trans- why do they get translucent?
It's after midnight, a warm summer night in Texas. We set up camp in the Chisos Basin a few hours ago in 114 degrees. And tonight, I'm a scorpion hunter.
Lauren Esposito: they're well adapted to living in virtually every environment on earth, including deserts. My name's Lauren Esposito and I am the curator of arachnology at the California academy of sciences. So I am a scorpion biologist. That's my, my main trade.
Misha: Did they not come out during the day, Jonathan? Do we know? They don't?
Jonathan: I forget why they don’t-
Misha: And they're translucent at night. Cause they're black in the day. Right?
Jonathan: They kind of camouflage-
Misha: The photos I was looking at, they were black.
Lauren Esposito: I studied bark scorpions, which is, um, a group of scorpions distributed from the Southwestern United States through Northern South America. So luckily in big bend, there's a species that is called the striped bark, bark scorpion.
Misha: Oh, wait you have two flashlights.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Misha: Niiiice. Good job. Wow. Get away from me, bugs. I haaate it.
You're listening to Hello, Nature from REI Co-Op Studios, brought to you by Subaru. I'm your host, Misha Euceph.
This episode, we're in Big Bend, traditional land of the Jumanos, Lipan Apache, Coahuiltecan, Mescalero Apache, and the Chiso.
Jonathan: She said, no, she said you'll just see them sitting in a rocks, but I really think we would have to go with the trail.
Misha: We can start going like a little further away from our campsite, but… I don’t know if I’m down to go like all the way on the trail…
Lauren Esposito: For me as a child, like Big Bend was the pinnacle of nature. It was like the place that you went, if you really wanted to see some incredible unique stuff in a place that's already really incredible and unique. The Chihuahuan desert is like a magnificent desert and big bend is the highlight. I mean it’s definitely one of the crown jewels of the Chihuahuan desert.
She’s so right. I can’t see anything right now, because it’s pitch dark.
But in the daytime, when we set up camp, this place is stunning. Surprisingly lush too. It almost looks like someone let Bob Ross go happy little tree crazy on a painting of the desert.
Lauren Esposito: so my average field day looks like a hiker. Like I'm walking around except, and I hike really, really slow because I'm stopping to like flip over every single thing I see. So I'm like the slowest hiker ever. And to be honest, during the day tends to not be super fruitful for scorpions. At night is when it's really exciting.
Misha: We can start going like a little further away from our campsite, but I don't know if I'm down to go all the way on the trail. Let's just keep going… I’ll let you know, my comfort levels.
Jonathan: I'm going to bring a real light.
Misha: Yeah, a head light just in case? We don't have to turn it on… Oh! How big are they - like, oh, really? Ugh, these bugs are all over me because of the stupid light.
Lauren Esposito: No moon is when it's best to see them with ultraviolet lights, because they're quite dim lights in comparison to the Moonlight. Um, but it's also when they're the most active, because predators can't see them as well. And so they'll just be out, like sitting on rocks, or at the entrance of their burrow, just doing like, waiting for something to walk by. they're just sitting there waiting for me to find them. It’s amazing.
Misha: Oh, what about here? ... Oh, I saw one. It's right here. I see it. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, my God. It's the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Is it getting hurt because of the light? No, right? I'm not hurting it because of the light. Can you take a photo?
Jonathan: Yeah, I’ll try.
Misha: Holy fucking shit, Jonathan. Holy shit. Oh my god. That’s my first time in my life seeing a scorpion... that's my personality, apparently according to the Zodiac.
Lauren Esposito: Women are definitely the, the, the dominators in all arachnids, virtually, like they're, they're the ones choosing, based on the fitness of the male- And the way that that scorpions court is the male will approach the female.
Male scorpion voice: Hi.
Female scorpion voice: Hey.
Lauren Esposito: Uh usually he starts this, this behavior called juttering which means he's like kind of shaking his legs.
MSV: I couldn’t help but notice you.
FSV: What?
Lauren Esposito: And what that's doing is transmitting an acoustic signal to the female because they have like little ears in their feet. And she hears the juttering and understands that it's a male approaching for courtship. First, like I should say she's bigger than him. So it's like risky business for him to approach her because she could just decide to eat them. And scorpions are in fact, like can be cannibalistic.
FSV: I could kill you and eat you.
Lauren Esposito: So it's like he's taking a big risk and approaching And so he needs to send a signal to her that like communicates what this is about. Uh and then he'll he'll approach her like face on. And then he reaches out and grabs her hands with his hand.
MSV: Or, we could dance.
Lauren Esposito: So that and now they're like facing each other and then they essentially engage in like what looks like a ballroom dance.
Misha: What is it doing?
MSV: Yawn
Lauren Esposito: If he gets tired really fast, or if he's not very strong or like good at like leading her on the dance, then he's probably not the best father for her offspring.
Jonathan: Yeah. I mean, he knows we’re here. He's like ready to fuck us up.
Misha: Yeah. His tail is like going fucking crazy. He's very small and he's fully neon right now. Cause I think he's translucent at night while he's ready to beat us up. But he can't move that fast. He's like an insect.
Jonathan: Yeah, he’s just like waiting.
Misha: Yeah. His tail is curling like a cat almost. Oh, my God we saw when I really didn't think we're going to see one.
Lauren Esposito: Big Bend is really interesting because it's sort of in the Northern part of the Sierra Madre orientalis, um, which is a mountain range that extends, um, north to south on the Eastern side of Mexico.
I’m used to deserts with cacti and joshua trees. This place is changing my definition of the word desert. There are prickly pears and tall yellow agave plants towering over me everywhere.
And trees. Like tall, normal non-succulent trees.
There are mountains-- giant, peach colored rocks with hints of black and grey. Hints of blue.
But like every desert I’ve ever been to, Big Bend’s true beauty is in the change of the light throughout the day. The trees, the rocks, the agave flowers, the mountains all take on different colors depending on how the sun reflects off of them.
It’s subtle. Breathtaking.
And at night, the blue takes over.
Lauren Esposito: And, at the top of this mountain range, there's the geology has created this sort of perfect storm where things that were slowly evolving and dispersing up the Eastern side of the mountain range and things that were slowly evolving and dispersing up the Western side of the mountain range, like sort of come together right at the top. And that's where Big Bend is. Um, and so this is where species that had been separated for a long time by this huge mountain range, come into contact with each other.
Misha: Did you think it was gonna be this small? You thought it was gonna be bigger, going to be bigger?
Jonathan: I thought they were gonna be bigger actually. They tend to get a little bigger. This is probably a little guy.
Misha: Baby? You think it's a baby?
Jonathan. Yeah.
Misha: Holy shit. Wow. This is legitimately one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. Can you believe it? I found it too. Do I deserve credit?
Jonathan: I like, really can’t believe it.
Misha: I know. Same. It was meant to be, I was meant to experience this for myself.
Jonathan: Let’s go find some more.
Misha No dude. That's cool. No, we're going back. We found one. Yeah, I dude, I'm not going back. I'm not going on that trail at night. I'm not that. You can go. Let me know if you're alive.
Okay, so you’re gonna judge me, but I don’t really care. I got super into astrology during the pandemic. I went from knowing I was a scorpio sun but not really caring to --you know, what I did with the national parks. I found out my sun, moon, rising.
Did a whole birth chart reading. Bought a couple books, read them cover to cover.
And started judging people based entirely on their zodiac signs.
Just kidding about the last part, unless you’re a gemini.
Misha: Ok I’m using my phone app to figure out what these stars are - Ursa Major. It’s a bear!...
Anyway, being out here in Big Bend, looking at the stars, it’s kinda hard not to ascribe meaning to the constellations.
I mean, we use them to navigate. All kinds of animals and insects use the moon to orient themselves.
Misha: Ok. I’m gonna keep looking. I wanna find Scorpio.
You know, for centuries, astrology was considered scholarly. The Hindus, the Mayans, the Chinese all studied and trusted it.
Misha: Virgo! Libra! Huh! Wooow.
It wasn’t until the scientific method became a thing that astrology lost its cred.
Misha: Oh my god, dude we are seeing so many.
But I don’t care about its cred. Or what scientists think about astrology.
What I love about it, is that it orients me. In relation to things outside of earth.
When I’m reading about it, I’m part of something bigger. A part of what’s in the sky.
Misha: Awwww! Oh what did we just see a scorpion? Scorpius! This is my first time seeing Acorpio and I can see it! Dude I can fucking see it.
Jonathan: So cool it's coming over the mountain too.
Misha: Oh my god, I’m gonna cry.
And sometimes, I like it better up there.
ACT II
So, it’s around 8pm. Night two of our Big Bend trip. We’re at the McDonald observatory, on top of a hill outside of Fort Davis, Texas.
Misha: It’s cool you can see the stars. It’s not even fully dark yet.
Stephen Hummel: That’s Venus over there -
Misha: That’s Venus?! How do you know?
Stephen Hummel: It’s really bright (laughter from both)
Stephen Hummel: I'm Steven Hummel. I am dark sky specialist for McDonald observatory, the university of Texas at Austin.
And no, Stephen is not an astrologer. He’s a legit scientist.
Stephen Hummel: My job is to help raise awareness of our night sky and the value of darkness. So solutions and strategies, uh, to address light pollution.
Big Bend and the surrounding areas in West Texas, they're officially considered dark sky regions. And you might be wondering, like me, um, aren't ALL skies at night dark skies? Apparently not.
Stephen Hummel: There is really nowhere left in the continental United States, where there is no trace of detectable light pollution. For that you would have to go to Northern Alaska or the middle of the ocean or something.
Basically, a dark sky region is a spot where there’s minimal light pollution.
Stephen Hummel: it's a sky where like, tonight you look up and you can't even begin to count the stars. Um, and... the constellations are hard to pick out because there's so many stars. You get lost.
And Big Bend is one of the National Parks in America that's a dark sky park. Which means people come here from all over the world to stargaze.
Stephen Hummel: I grew up in Dallas, in the suburbs of Dallas under very light polluted skies, my dad had a telescope. He showed me Jupiter and Saturn and things. I have remember that very vividly in our driveway, looking at, at, at Jupiter and its moons with our little telescope. And I still have that telescope.
I do remember being very young and looking through, uh, one of the old visitor's center telescopes, which isn't here anymore, really, um, at the Sombrero Galaxy. And I had no idea what I was looking at. I knew it was called the Sombrero Galaxy because that's a pretty memorable name, but I remember looking at his faint, fuzzy little gray splotch in a telescope eyepiece....And realizing, that is a galaxy. A system of billions of stars, millions of light years away. I got it at that moment, it left an impression on me.
It didn't just leave an impression on Stephen. It kinda changed his life. In this part of the country, he's like THE guy for dark sky stuff. And he now works at that same observatory he used to visit as a kid.
Misha: What is this thing called, this whole set up?
Stephen Hummel: It’s called the All Sky Photometer. It was actually developed by our National park system..
The sun just set-- the sky is massive, a bit cloudy, with streaks of hot pink and orange. A couple stars are peaking out.
And Stephen is standing next to me, over 6 feet, in grey jeans, a black baseball cap, and a denim button down. He’s rolled up his sleeves, and is staring straight at a laptop attached to a camera on a tripod.
He’s looking very “hero scientist” from a 90’s movie.
Stephen Hummel: This is usually a solo job. Um, once this is set up, it runs itself.
Stephen’s measuring the amount of light pollution in the sky-- how much there is, where it’s coming from.
First, he orients the camera using Polaris, the north star. That’s how the computer knows where we are, because we’re in a super remote spot and there’s no wi-fi.
Stephen Hummel: Ok power…
Then, the camera makes some camera noises.
It starts taking a bunch of photos of the entire sky and piecing them together.
The computer then takes the photos and turns them into numbers and data that to my normal brain make no sense.
Stephen Hummel: Sometimes the raw data isn’t very interesting to look at. Even if it is interesting!
It's getting a bit darker. The sky is turning from orange to a darker indigo. And my brain is turning to mush, cause I haven’t gotten ANY sleep. Everything we’ve done in this park has been at night. And the daytime is way too hot to sleep inside our tents.
Stephen: Go ahead, Justin.
Justin: I am going to be heading up to work on the dim up there.
Would you like me to radio before I turn any lights on after it gets a bit darker?
Stephen: Yes, please, thank you.
Justin: Roger that.
Before coming to Big Bend, I had never thought about the importance of darkness. I mean, in normal life, my instinct is to run from darkness, to turn on the light.
Stephen Hummel: We're only now, now beginning to realize in the past, like 10, 15 years, that light pollution is really a pollutant and that it is affecting all sorts of wildlife in ways that we never really quite understood. All life on earth, for the most part, evolved under a cycle of day and night. And with more light at night, we no longer have to rely on, you know, that basically that cycle, uh, which can screw with all sorts of things. Um, there's actually more nocturnal species now than there were a century ago.
Um, so things like in cities, um, deer and raccoons and squirrels and birds and all sorts of things, some of which are up at night anyway. But more of them are more active at night because there's enough light for them to see. And it's when humans aren't around, you know, loud, annoying humans bothering them.
We really have fundamentally changed, uh, the environment and a lot of places in the world that a whole animal can basically live in an environment that it is not evolved to at all.
Some can adapt to live at night. Um, but even then that's, that's the survival technique. That's, that's getting by as opposed to dying in a lot of cases. Uh, and so there's a lot of species aren't as lucky. Um, insects being one of the main culprits. For most insects, they see a bright light and they go towards it because that's, that's something ingrained in them, tells them to do that. And in most cases, if say you see that moth circling a lamp or something outside, it's not going to live to see the morning. It's going to either overheat from that light or exhaust itself to death. Starve itself, because it's so confused. Without insects, that, that means birds can’t eat.That messes up a broader food chain. So even species that aren't directly affected by light pollution probably are, are related to, or rely on some other species that is...
Stephen Hummel: Let's see. It's almost 10 o'clock…
Jonathan: What’s moving out there?
Misha: Oh my gosh. That's the thing. That's a little creature.
Stephen Hummel: What's that?
Misha: That's a little creature over there. Is it a skunk? I can’t really
Jonathan: Oh it’s a skunk!
Stephen Hummel: It is a skunk. Uh oh! Uh oh.
Misha: Oh my God. I don't want to, I don't want to get sprayed. I’m greeting behind everyone else
Stephen Hummel: Calmly walk -
Misha: Away? Yeah.
Stephen Hummel: - away
Misha: Yeah Jonathan let's walk away.
Jonathan: I got excited because I was like, maybe it’s a javelina.
Misha: No, I'm pretty sure it's a skunk and I really, really am not trying to get sprayed.
Stephen Hummel: Yeah, that’s a skunk. He’s just kind of ignoring us.
Misha: I hope so.
Stephen Hummel: Yeah.
Misha: Is shining or light gonna make it want to spray us more?
Stephen Hummel: Probably won't bother him too much, since it’s red.
Misha & Stephen: He's still coming towards us.
Misha: Should we walk further away?
Stephen Hummel: Yeah
Misha: Is this going to mess up your observations?
Stephen Hummel: Well, I think if he keeps moving through, I don't want to get sprayed here.
Misha: Yeah, I know. I'm like, if that's like, that would be a lifetime first.
Okay, so finally, the skunk left us alone. Or maybe it’s just waiting in the shadows, for the right moment to strike. I don’t know.
Misha: Um, I was kinda curious, cause you come up here alone a lot. You said, do you feel scared to come up here?
Stephen Hummel: No, I, well, sometimes, um, I think, uh, I'm, I'm kind of comfortable with it though. I have heard, say, like mountain lions in the distance.
Misha: How did you know they were mountain lions?
Stephen Hummel: Well, and during mating season, it sounded like, um, like a woman being murdered. It's a horrific shriek. Uh, it's very recognizable. And, but I think there, I think having a place where that sort of primal fear can still exist is, is something kind of magical in a way, and important, like I, yeah, like, yes, a mountain lion could, uh, potentially hurt you or kill you. But, um, it probably wont. It's, you know, and it never really happens - it's never happened here. Um, but I think there is something to that feeling that is part of the human experience. And it has been part of the human experience for millennia. And it's really only over the past hundred or so years when that hasn't been the case for most people. Um, that, that idea that there, you know, there are things out there which could hurt you. I have respect for the mountain lion, you know, that's, that's part of its existence. Is it just a predator. So it has a right to exist just as much as we do.
Misha: Yeah.
Stephen Hummel: Move the camera off
Stephen’s back to collecting data. Taking pictures of the sky.
And at this point, there are like a bajillion stars. I’m really exhausted, but my eyes have somehow adjusted to the darkness.
Stephen Hummel: Point it down at the horizon again.
It’s not really brighter, but it feels brighter.
Like the blue-ish starlight is enough to see everything.
I barely know the names of any stars. I couldn’t pick a favorite.
Misha: Like, do you have a favorite star or constellation?
Stephen Hummel: Yeah.
Misha: You do?
Stephen Hummel: Antares is one of my favorite stars. It's my second favorite Betelgeuse, which is in Orion. Antares is a similar star to Betelgeuse. It's a red, giant red, super giant. You can tell it's kind of reddish colored, if you look carefully, you stare at it.
A red supergiant star is an older, wiser star, absolutely losing sleep over not having started a 401k already, probably still has facebook.
Misha: I don’t want to interfere with what you normally do.
Stephen Hummel: No, yeah, yeah, I mean, you’ll see it.
Misha: Oh my God! Oh, my God.
Jonathan: Is it part of a constellation?
Stephen Hummel: Yes. Uh, Antares is the brightest star in, uh, and Scorpius
Misha: Mmmm.
Stephen Hummel: Um, of all the constellations. It looks the most like the thing it's really named after Scorpius looks like a scorpion. But the, this is, uh, the heart of the scorpion. Antares, sometimes called the heart of the scorpion. Uh, here's its head and here it's claws. Very long claws extending out into the sky. Um, and it's also a very massive star. It will eventually explode and die, uh, in the future when it runs out of fuel in a few million years, which for star isn't that long, but, uh, for us it is.
Misha: So what happens when it dies? What happens to Scorpius?
Stephen Hummel: Well, it will never look the same. It would lose its heart, wouldn't it?
Explosion SFX
Uh, but yeah, it would, it would, it would explode in a supernova. It looked very bright and it would be a very obvious in the sky. It would be brighter than Venus was earlier. Uh, and, eventually over a few months or years, it would fade away completely.
As a child, and an adult, the stars are something I’ve taken for granted. I know some basic stuff I learned in highschool like - stars are born. Stars die.
But, I have never really taken a second to think about what that actually means - they age. They have phases of life?
Stars - they're just like us.
Stephen Hummel: I mean, astronomy is the oldest science. It's been around, as long as people have had eyes to look up with, um, people have been studying the stars, drawing their own meanings from them. Um, and we continue to do that today. Um, but I think people are losing touch with the sky, uh, and, and the role it plays in, in our lives and how we, and our sense of who we are and what we are in the universe.
And so if we lose the ability to look up, I think we, we lose something. Something deep within us. Um, some sort of sense of who we are as a species. If we, if we can't connect with where we are.
Don't be afraid of the dark. Um, it let you just take a moment. If you come out here to just, just sit in darkness, like we are now and realize that your eyes are way better than that you think they are,
Misha: It’s incredible. Leo. Libra! Huh! Sagittarius! Oh that’s that’s that’s that’s that’s space station! That’s the international space station. Virgo! Look.
My eyes feel like stars at the end of their life - heavy and about to explode.
It’s 1 in the morning, and we’re ready to go home. We walk back to our car, in the dark. Just our quarter-sized red lights lighting the way.
At 3 in the morning we finally pull into camp.
ACT III
Misha: Alright it is sunrise. Just got out of my tent. It’s starting to be sunrise, I think we are like 20 minutes away.
I’m up with the sunrise the next day.
Misha: Um, haven’t slept in like, the last hour and a half because I thought there were snakes circling my tent.
I’m doing a five mile solo hike so I can really get my eyeballs all over this place.
Misha: The sky is really beautiful and pink. Alright, see ya.
Of all the parks we’ve been to, I’m most excited to be in Big Bend. Mostly because the park is in Texas, and I’ve always had a romantic idea of the American west.
The land of cowboys with tall boots and big hearts in pick-up trucks or on horseback.
Clear eyes, full hearts and all that.
This is the America of the Eagles and Clint Eastwood. The America that compelled my 16 year old dad to ask his neighborhood carpenter to make him a guitar from scratch.
The America that brought my whole family here in 2003.
And here I am, ready to hike all by my lone self in the lone star state.
Misha: Real good idea. We are here at the trailhead, walking down these stair-like things. And that is the poop of an animal. That is the poop of a large animal. Human like. Looks really fresh. Ok, I’m just gonna grab bear spray. Mountain lion - keeps kids close to adults, hike with others… No one else on the trail so far… Ok, saw a rock, looked like a bear. Got freaked out. I don’t wanna do this alone. I’m not ready…
Ok, so, I get back to the campsite -
Misha: Jonathan! I’m not going alone. Honestly, I just saw poop. And I was like I can’t do this.
Jonathan: Do you want me to make you some coffee first?
Misha: I’ll have coffee but I’m okay without breakfast. I can wash the dishes.
- And Jonathan is enjoying a leisurely morning with a watery coffee. And the temperature is climbing quickly into the 90’s. On its way to the 100’s.
Misha: I’m like, why am I not courageous? I’m just not? I can’t do it.
Jonathan’s like, but we can’t leave yet! We have to see the Fossil Discovery Exhibit.
And I’m like. I’ve slept maybe like 3 hours, dude. But sure, let’s look at some dinosaur bones.
The sun is blazing and it feels like a gift to step inside the exhibit, into the shade.
The exhibit itself is half outdoor, half indoor.
And the hours of the exhibit, I love this - dawn till dusk.
When you walk up, you see a giant dinosaur skeleton at the entrance. It’s metal-- copper in color.
And the whole thing is set up as a timeline. It covers the last 130 million years, showing all the different phases in prehistoric life.
If this park has done anything to me, it has completely changed how I literally see time and space. It’s kind of a trip, in the best way.
Misha: Okay. We are here. Welcome. Welcome from ferocious sea creatures to massive dinosaurs and tiny early mammals, Big Bend rocks preserved one of the most diverse fossil records in North America.
Before Big Bend, I had never heard the term Deep Time - which one might think is time to get deep. But no, no, no, no it means the whole span of time that earth has existed. Deep time.
Lisa White: Planet earth, was formed a four and a half billion years ago. When earth scientists, talk about deep time, we do mean that billion to millions of years history.
Misha: Wow. How cool? Around a hundred million years ago, a broad and shallow sea covered Big Bend. About 76 million years ago, the Rocky mountains began to rise and the sea retreated. Big bend was on the coast.
This lush desert used to BE the coast. California, Arizona - they were underwater. If a dinosaur wanted beachfront property - Texas was it.
Lisa White: It's a rare dinosaur fossil in California for that very reason, because most of our region of the far west was under water. My name is Dr. Lisa White, and I'm the director of education and outreach at the University of California museum of paleontology on the Berkeley campus.
Lisa is more into earth science and fossils than I am into astrology. She loves geoscience and wants you to love it too.
Misha: 70 million years ago. The mountains rose higher and the Seaway began to close. Big bend was far inland and dinosaurs flourished… They're like massive alligators and like rhino sores, rhinoceroses with like big horns and flappy elephant like heads. They're birds that look like unlike anything I've ever seen, like a Platypus flying or something. Giant elephants. A lion eating like a small little fox like creature…
Lisa White: And, and with the power of all of the tools we have at our fingertips. And the way the national park service has really invested in these, uh, interpretive exhibits. So that one can have a sense for what the landscape was like a hundred million years ago.
Misha : Wow. Hundred million years of fossils from Big Bend. 80 million year old tree trunk. What? 80 million years old.
The exhibit is fascinating. Who doesn't like a good fossil?
30 million years at Big Bend at the boneyard. 40 million years ago, there were volcanic Highlands hundred 30 million years ago.
Ok - me like an hour before this. I’m growing.
It's hard to keep perspective when people are throwing around numbers like 100 million and 75 million like it’s 30 years or something. To understand, Lisa says to think of a calendar...
Lisa White: if we compare the four and a half billion years of earth history to a single calendar year, then it is, uh, it is a wake up call for how little it'll have those years of earth history. There has been life on earth.
Month one January.
Wait no actually there were definitely not crickets at the beginning of time on earth.
No life in January, February, March. None in April, May, June. Not in July or August. In the 4.6 billion years of time this earth has existed, there was no life for MOST of it. And then - we get some bacteria. Some single cell organisms. Maybe a little Cyanobacteria and then - -
Lisa White: Animals without backbones that lived in Marine environments.
October, November and December - about halfway through December we get the dawn of the dinosaurs. Mid December, people!
Lisa White: But by Christmas they were extinct. Can you imagine in this calendar analogy to four and a half billion years of earth history, that the Dawn of the dinosaurs and the end of the dinosaurs took about two weeks on a year calendar. And so, for human evolution, we appear about a minute before midnight. So the first hominids are at, you know, 11:59 PM on December 31st.
The entire history of humankind is one minute at the very end of the the year. Just one minute. Our generation is less than a second. It’s like .0075 of a second.
Lisa White: Even the the dinosaurs that we think is, you know, so ancient and so prominent for so long in earth history, they're limited to about a two week period, you know, in December.
Big Bend, back then, was home to so many incredible creatures. Four, ten, twenty times larger than a Misha.
Misha: Moses, our name means lizard found near moose river moose river Meuse river originally discovered in France. Wow. So these guys were air breathing but they were lizards.
Lisa White: It’s fascinating that parks like big bend, you know, can, can capture all that capture that history.
We walk outside, to the top of a hill nearby-- it’s where the last sign of the exhibit is.
Misha: Whoa! The view is gorgeous. You can see all the mountains.
For a long time, well relatively long time, we didn't know exactly what happened to the dinosaurs. We knew they died. But we didn't know how. We didn’t know why.
Then, like 40ish years ago a geologist named Walter Alvarez and his dad came up with this hypothesis-- that the dinosaurs all died in a mass extinction event - yep, you guessed it. Those were the dudes who said it was an asteroid that hit the earth and spread so much dust and debris through the atmosphere, that the earth was taken over by darkness.
No sun, no life.
Most people think this isn’t the only factor, but it’s a big one.
Of course, not everything died - enough things survived that WE were able to evolve from what was left behind.
It is scorching at this point, I can feel my back burning as we head back to our car. And everyone here is feeling the heat.
Misha: Oh, that's so smart. The umbrella.
Lady in park: I have Lupus and the doctor says, stay out of the sun.
Misha: And you came here?
Lady in park: Of course.
Misha: I love it. I love the spirit - Yeah. Take care.
In the one minute that our species has existed, we have completely changed the course of our planet.
We’ve tried to wage war over anything and everything.
What we have done with our minute is the most impressive... and depressing thing I can think of.
If some other species is wandering through this same land 65 million years from now - what will they find in our wake? Plastic islands?
The mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, that blacked out the sun, that created so much darkness -
Also created us.
We’re possible because of darkness.
We’re made of that darkness.
Ok, so - we drive out of the park to Terlingua, Texas. If I thought I was in a Western, now I’m REALLY in a Western.
There are literal saloons and green border patrol cars everywhere.
You know how after you’ve been traveling for a while, all you want is someone else to feed you?
Preferably your mom.
Like, no shade to the freeze dried spaghetti and the hot dogs, but I need A MEAL.
We stop at this bar and grill, The Starlight Theater.
Man, sometimes you can’t write it better. Ya know?
Everyone else in this place is white.
Jonathan and I sit at the end of the bar.
And when our food arrives, the man sitting next to me looks over.
“That’s the best thing in this place. Best thing on the menu.”
He has sandy blonde hair and a mustache. He wants to talk and I’m ready to listen.
He tells me about how the best years of his life were when he was crabbing in Alaska. Up with the sun, out on the ocean.
He tells me about the most beautiful creature he has ever seen. An albatross.
Not because it is the most exquisite animal, but because of how it moves. Gliding through the air as if thinking alone keeps it in flight.
This guy is really giving off big cowboy energy.
He eventually asks us where we’re from, and I say Los Angeles... and of course he is like, ughhh.
He says something like, you two seem nice but don’t bring that California bullshit here.
And then he immediately starts talking about gun rights. Like one minute we are in a poem and then boom - guns. And I am into it. Because we are not fighting, or debating even, we are just talking. Laughing.
Like, I love this guy.
You know, I spent a year in my apartment, talking to people through a computer.
When what I love about my job is talking to people in real life.
Anyway, almost all the people I have talked to so far on this trip, it was planned. Like, I HAD to talk to Shelton Johnson! I needed to talk to David Treuer after I read his books.
But this cowboy with tall boots and a big heart --I mean, metaphorically-- was just a happy accident.
And it’s moments like this that seep under my skin.
Where I feel what makes Texas so special. It’s the subtle sunlight filtering through an agave flower in Big Bend.
And the scorpions glowing under a blacklight.
The stars and fossils that place us in something bigger than ourselves.
The cowboys who remind us that we are sharing just a nano-second with each other.
And that nano-second contains a lot of darkness - but it also contains beauty.
Anyway, we’re off to Glacier.