Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Baja California
Late November in Seattle is a bitter time. Summer is long gone, only a dis-
tant memory. With November come the Pacific gales, bringing unrelenting
rainfall. Days pass with no glimpse of the sun, and in the high latitude of the
Pacific Northwest the November days are short. Darkness comes early, and
the spirit is challenged. No tourists visit Seattle in November, and the num-
ber of suicides skyrockets. It is a great month to escape southward, to sunnier
climes and ammonite-rich rocks. No wonder November has been chosen as
the prime time to study geology in Baja California.
There is no easy way to get to Baja. My own route always passes through
Pasadena, home to the California Institute of Technology. On my first-ever
trip to this fabled institution, my plane landed in Burbank in the dark. Then
I made my way to Pasadena by shuttle, finally to be deposited at the front door
of an impressive stucco building: the Athenaeum, Cal Tech's faculty club.
Faculty clubs are normally somewhat cheesy affairs tucked away in some
forgotten corner of a university campus and frequented by the poorly dressed
army of university faculty. Yet this place was elegant, old-money Californian.
The upper stories of the building formed a comfortable hotel. Downstairs was
a huge living room, walls covered with portraits that constituted a veritable
Who's Who
of American science in this century. Rich, thick carpets leading to
a large dining room muted murmurings from well-dressed patrons (most of
whom, I later learned, were not faculty members but wealthy Californians will-
ing to shell out large membership fees to rub elbows with the distinguished fac-
ulty). Dressed as I was in field gear and hiking boots, I looked like a man in a
Hallowe'en costume, and the other patrons looked at me as if I were a Martian.
I had traveled to Cal Tech as the fitst leg of an expedition to Cretaceous-
aged exposures found along the western coastline of Baja California. My host
for this trip was a man I knew by reputation but had never met, the paleo-
magnetist Dr. Joseph Kirschvink. After settling into my room, I set out to
find Kirschvink. I was told that he was currently speaking in one of the
largest of the university's lecture halls. It seemed odd to me: past 8
PM
and
