What a Cavern

We spent last week in New Mexico for a combination trip of seeing my folks and finally traveling down to Carlsbad Caverns.  My parents have lived in New Mexico now for over 20 years and in all that time we never managed to find the time to drive five hours south through the wilds of New Mexico to visit what has to be one of the largest cave systems in the Americas.  Of course, I haven't visited that many of the cave systems in the Americas so I'm just guessing there.

We had wonderful weather during our visit, highs in the 70's and 80's with sunny skies which was a nice change of pace as Wisconsin is having a pretty dreary May so far.  It has rained 12-13 days out of 22 so far and we have only had a few days where the temperatures have even made into the 70's.  So finally seeing some sun was a real treat.  Naturally, the food was great as we tanked up on our favorite mexican dishes - although Jo did find out the challenges with letting the restaurant pile on the green chiles for you as she suffered through some really spicy cheese enchiladas one meal, let's just say lesson learned.  The evening games of cards were fun, especially since Mom and I continued our winning streak from our last visit (4 games to 2, not that I'm rubbing it in!!!!).  We also got in a few nice hikes and managed to find a new loop route that took us into the back canyons further than we had managed before.  But, all too soon it was time to head south to visit the giant underground hole.

The drive south from Albuquerque was pretty peaceful as there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road.  Not hard to figure out why not, since there really isn't a lot of anything there.  Lots of scrub, a few ranches scattered far apart and the occasional antelope.  Although, at least for the antelopes we did see they weren't particularly "playing" as the song goes, mostly standing around trying to avoid the heat was my guess.  We stopped in Roswell, NM for lunch at a fun diner (really good barbecue, bacon hamburger and sweet potato fries - although no milk shakes, what kind of diner doesn't have milk shakes?) and afterwards took in the UFO museum.  Fascinating place with an interesting story to tell - were we visited by aliens in 1947?  Maybe, maybe not - at least a dozen people seemed convinced we were.  Fun museum with some interesting viewpoints to consider.  Afterwards that thought provoking stop we headed down to Carlsbad all the while debating whether any alien species had visited earth and if so, why can't anyone take a decent picture of them.  We made it in time to see the bat flight from the cave which was truly amazing.  Thousands of bats come careening out of the cave opening near dusk, for about an hour, looking for their evening meal.  Since we weren't at the peak bat time - when the baby bats are also present and the full flock (or whatever lots of bats are called - I just looked it up it is called either a colony or camp) has completed the migration from Mexico - it was must be spectacular during the later summer (when the bat flight can last up to four hours, instead of just one).  The ranger estimated that there are about 200,000 bats currently present - how did he estimate that, he fully admitted it was just a wild guess.

The next day we got up early for our ranger led exploration of Carlsbad cavern.  On this special guided tour we got to climb down to the lower cave with a small group of twelve and two rangers who provided lots of information about the caverns (e.g., how they were formed, who explored them, and the history since they became a tourist destination).  Very special as we got to experience the complete darkness that caves provide - very eerie and very interesting to see what your eyes do when they are open but can't see anything - as well as seeing many of the cave formations up close and personal.  After the tour we took the grand tour of the upper cave and are still marveling at the shear size of the caverns.  Well worth a trip if you are ever nearby. 

After our day in the cave we drove to El Paso for dinner and to spend the night before hopping on a plane and making our way home.