Friday, January 22, 2010

Two Natural Wonders I Must See In Texas Before I Die

I got a book a couple days ago titled 1001 Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die.

When I got the book I wondered how many Wonders I've seen. I figured places like Grand Canyon would be on the list, along with other American National Parks. I was right about that.

I wondered if there would be any Wonders in Texas. The only place I've been to in Texas that I thought might be a Wonder is Enchanted Rock.

Enchanted Rock was not on the list. But 2 other places in Texas are on the list of Natural Wonders. Neither of which have I seen.

One Texas Natural Wonder is Natural Bridge Caverns. This Wonder is located a few miles north of San Antonio.

The other Texas Natural Wonder that one must see before they die is the Basin of the Chisos Mountains. This basin is in the Chihuahuan Desert. The Basin and Chisos Mountains are part of Big Bend National Park.

When I thumbed through the 1001 Wonders I needed to see, I wondered how many necessary to see Wonders were in my old home state of Washington. I figured Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens were likely on the list. I was right about those two.

Other Washington Wonders are the Grand Coulee, Dry Falls, Upper Skagit River and the Columbia River Gorge.

Having both the Grand Coulee and Dry Falls as Wonders makes no sense to me. They are very similar and very close to each other. And Grand Coulee is mostly flooded by Lake Roosevelt, which is not a natural lake, it is the reservoir made by Grand Coulee Dam.

I lived in the Lower Skagit River zone. I don't get having the Upper Skagit River on this list of Wonders. The blurb about the Upper Skagit focuses on the Bald Eagle Preserve, where they hang out to eat salmon that are returning to spawn. I had a Bald Eagle who lived in a big nest, high up in a tall tree in the woods behind my house in Mount Vernon. I don't think I ever visited the Upper Skagit River Bald Eagle Preserve.

No mention is made of the Olympic Rain Forests or the Washington Coast or the North Cascades or any of the other Washington volcanoes, like Mount Baker, which usually accumulates the world's deepest snow each winter.

Lists like this always seem goofy to me when they are covering an area where I know what they are talking about. To get to 1001 Natural Wonders this book does stuff like list Yosemite, then also lists Wonders that are in Yosemite, like Half Dome and Bridalveil Falls and Glacier Point. It does the same thing with other National Parks, like Yellowstone and Bryce Canyon.

Anyway, there must be more than 2 Natural Wonders of merit in big ol' Texas. I've not been to Palo Duro Canyon. Maybe it's a Wonder.

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