Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM

Old Sinclair Gas Station in tiny Greenfield, NM

On Friday, we drove south toward Carlsbad, NM, and along the way we saw this neat old gas station in sad shape. But, hey, it was interesting to look at, so we stopped and took a bunch of pictures. We also found a herd of cows walking on the street, so we rolled down the window and said hello.

We continued on down to Carlsbad Caverns, a network of over 30 miles of caverns up to 1000 feet deep discovered by Native Americans years ago and by other locals at later times after seeing thousands of bats flying out of it at dusk each summer night, as they still do. But the caverns were extensively explored first by Jim White, a fearless teenager who built a rickety ladder to climb down into the giant natural entrance in 1898.

Over subsequent years, he explored the caverns hundreds of times, eventually began taking visitors, and was credited with bringing national attention to this remarkable geological asset. We walked down the Natural Entrance, a 1.25 mile downhill trek on nicely paved switchback trails (installed in the 1950s) until we reached the ‘Big Room’, a huge underground room about the size of 14 football fields.  The caverns have been part of the National Park Service since 1930 and a snack bar and rest area are built into a portion of the Big Room. A set of passenger elevators, originally installed in the 1950s, has eliminated the need to climb back up the 750 foot entrance, allowing access for many more visitors. (Ken remembers visiting the caverns with his parents in the 50s, too!)

We took both of the self-guided tours, the first of the Natural Entrance, and the second of the 1.25 mile tour of the Big Room. Though the room is so large, it is impossible to understand its scale from any one point standing inside it, mostly because it's so dark and there are so many different cave formations all over. We made our way around on the nicely paved, but twisty and hilly path.

The artificial light in the caverns provides only enough light to illuminate some of the formations and allow us to see where we’re going (mostly). And we were told before entering to only whisper to each other because normal speech can travel in the cave up to a ¼ mile away (and many children's, and some adults', voices did just that). The temperature and climate in the caverns doesn’t change, regardless of the weather on the surface. It stays about 56 degrees and 95% humidity all the time. We had a great time!

Back on the top of the planet, I walked around taking pictures of little desert flowers and such. Then we drove back up to Roswell for happy hour again at Pepper’s Grill.

As we were driving to Roswell on Wednesday, we had seen large herds of unidentifiable animals on the ranches, interspersed with the cattle we saw occasionally. At 65 miles an hour we couldn’t tell what we were looking at. The animals (and there were literally hundreds of them in each herd we saw) looked like giant tawny-colored goats or smooth-coated, horned donkeys...we assumed they were a farm animal of some kind. Turns out, they’re pronghorn antelopes! Who knew?? While at the visitor center, the guide there mentioned them and we realized that’s what we’d been seeing all along! So, we went looking for them and only found 8, but, hey, at least we found some.

We headed back to the campground just as the sun was setting over Lea Lake, the lake closest to our RV. We grabbed the camera and watched the sun set over the water…so amazing.

What a spectacular day, both above and below ground!