Port au Prince

So: I'm back. And I have to say, going to Haiti was one of the most different things I have ever done. I have never felt so white or so privileged or so awkward or so uncomfortable or interested or satisfied or scared in my whole life. I have lots of pictures, and I have finally uploaded them. I'll be sorting out the crap ones and uploading the decent ones. Mostly decent. I'm not a great photographer, especially when moving vehicles are involved. Oh, and my favorite Haitian primer.

The shock-and-awe of Haiti began early, at the airport. I have seen a lot of planes. This is the biggest plane I've ever seen.


For scale, a smaller plane. The terminal was full of planes. The volunteer sitting next to me on the plane said she'd never seen so many planes at PAP airport. Two, at the most.


It's not a great picture, but that's the US Military in the background.


It appeared that though we've turned the airport back over to the Haitians, security and coordination is still handled by others.


A UN guard below the walkway to customs.


This plane, which we passed on the way to customs, was filling up with Haitian orphans and their new families.


Another plane unloading medical supplies. Another layer of problems for relief workers: the shakedown of supplies brought into the country.


For some reason, I thought that air traffic would have slowed down. Wrong.


That enormous plane? Russian. When Russia's sending relief supplies, you know you're in deep shit. (No offense, Minister Putin!)


I'm going to try and get some more pictures of the tent cities from my friends' albums later. There were a lot of them. And they are not safe places to be.


And this was where we, the blanches, stayed.


Standing between us and a tent city: an enormous gate and a man with a twelve-gauge shotgun.


Demand was up, since this was one of the only hotels stills standing. The hotel had set up several tents, equipped with mattresses, lamps, and fans. The difference between our tents and the tents outside cannot be exaggerated.


A tent city bordering on destroyed buildings.


It reminded me of tornadoes, where some houses stand and some get their rooms torn off and some just get torn to the ground.


People must be clearing rubble from inside the property.


Pigs and goats eat out of mounds of garbage around the city.


The garbage, actually, is everywhere. This is the side of a busy road.


A standing house, a crushed station wagon.


A funeral home left standing.


To me, Port au Prince looks like a city built inside of a disaster zone. My uncle says that, before the quake, the city was finally making progress. Now, it's worse than he's ever seen it.

New Mexico

I really, really love New Mexico.



Look how big that sky is!




My host insisted that we visit Carlsbad Caverns. We took the long way in, and I'm really glad we did. The natural entrance turned out to be my favorite spot in the whole thing.




This is The Big Room, the icing on the cake of the whole thing.




A formation called the Whale's Mouth.




More awesome sky!

Abilene

I was pleasantly surprised by pretty much everything in Abilene. I was expecting Lubbock, only with less everything. Instead, I got awesome.





Plus, the drive there from San Antonio took me through the Hill Country.




And with the Hill Country comes Fredericksburg, home to a large number of German immigrants. Doesn't show, really.




Dominating the landscape: wind turbines!




Texas produces more wind energy than any other state in the nation.




With cow for scale. See him? That little black guy at the bottom? My host told me that each blade on the turbine is longer than a semi and has to be trucked in with 'oversized load' signs everywhere.




She also took me to Fort Phantom Hill, part of the frontier system. It hasn't aged very gracefully.




It was only occupied for three years, from 1851-54.




Shortly after it was abandoned, it burned to the ground.




It's seen better days. But it's still pretty cool.




My host's Chevy pickup. How Texas are we?

San Antonio

San Antonio was not originally a destination on this particular road trip. However, it had the only open seat for the GRE in the entire state of Texas. But I'm really glad I ended up there. Based on the glut of pictures alone.





The visibility on the first half of the drive from Dallas was not great.




But things got better after I left Waco. [Tasteless cult joke REDACTED]




This is the inscription on the small urn inside of the San Fernando Cathedral. The most unsung hero of the Texas Revolution, Juan Seguín, came back after the fall of the Alamo, scooped up the enormous pile of ashes, and had them interred here. He and Bowie were good friends. When Travis ordered Seguín to leave the Alamo as a courier, Seguín rode out on Bowie's horse.




This is the Governor's Palace! Where the Mexican Governor for the state of Coahuila y Tejas lived. Exception to the rule: Juan Martín de Veramendi. De Veramendi fell out of favor because he was too friendly with the anglos. Case in point: he sponsored Jim Bowie's conversion to Catholicism, a road stop on Bowie's path to Mexican citizenship. De Veramendi later became Bowie's father in law when his daughter Ursula married the land speculator from Kentucky. They lived together in the de Veramendi palace on Soledad street....which was TORN DOWN in 1910 to widen the road. [DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED] Later, when a cholera epidemic threatened, Bowie sent Ursula and their two young children to the de Veramendi home in Monclova. The cholera missed San Antonio and struck the mountains of Coahuila. Juan Martín, his wife Josefa, Maria Ursula, and at least one of the Bowie children all died in the span of a week.





And these are the gardens out back.




I love the gardens.




And you can rent them for special occasions!




A hospital mural as seen from Milam Park.




Epic t-shirt.




This was lunch: ceviche with talapia and julienned jalapeños. And popped corn. I thought the corn thing was weird, but it added a nice crunchiness. Anyway, it was deliciousness. Revived, I went on to glory.




This is the memorial built where the Alamo plaza used to be...it's the kind of big dramatic memorial that the place deserves.




This is the full footprint of the Alamo as it was in 1836. The building that remains is that small cross-shaped in the upper right hand corner.




And here she is!




RESPECT.


For the record, I did get some studying done. Well...enough.

Dallas

Anybody can google a nice shot of Reunion Tower or the AA Center or the Ballpark in Arlington or Jerry Jones' new Colosseum of GREEDY GRASPING OLD WHITE MEN. But I decided to take some pictures of the Dallas I remember growing up.




I'm beginning to doubt Montana's claim to 'Big Sky Country'.




This is Fretz Park, the library I grew up with. I voted for John Kerry in the gym behind the library and took swimming lessons in the pool next to it.




L.B.J freeway!




AKA: 635.




This is the ramp onto 635 from I-35 East South. Not a typo. Driving in Dallas is not for the faint of heart.




I have a lot of issues with my hometown: the Cowboys, the dry precincts, the godawful DISD. But the sunsets are not one of them.