Day Seven - Carlsbad Caverns and Texas

Day Seven - LONG day. Carlsbad Caverns was about an hour from our cute B&B so we drove through the town a bit and on into Carlsbad. Artesia is pretty sparse -- mostely farms, rundown businesses, and oil refinery equipment. This was our view for an hour.

Typical "side of the road" view in Artesia. This was on one side of the road, the oil refinery was on the other.

Artesia

The road to Carlsbad, from Artesia. Very straight!

The caverns are nothing short of amazing. Really. We walked down a path that drops 750 feet into the cave. It's along the original trail that Jim White walked when he discovered the caves many years ago. The picture is hard to see, but you can note the winding walkway, that was crazy steep. Walking into the cave, the temperature dropped from about 90 degrees and dry, to a cool 56 and humid! yay for humidity!


The cave extends for a few miles, and all you see are insanely huge stalagtite and stalagmite structures that have been growing forever. There is no temperature shift underground, so nothing is exposed to the elements. After a while, you feel like you're on Mars, by the way the ground looks, and it's almost like looking at clouds -- your mind tries to see figures in all of the organic shapes. It looks sort of rocky and monotone, and it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that it's all calcite and other minerals that have created everything. Probably one of the coolest national parks we've visited yet. This was really, really fun, and highly recommended.

Self timer shot in the caves...

Where's Waldo?! Or Jamie...

Water in the cave...sort of hard to see, but the water drips from the stalagtites and collects in water pools.

Called "Lion's Tail" because of the formation it made.

Stalagtites...

Can you find Justin?!

Before the path was blasted out, paved and installed with handrails, tourists had to climb down 17 stories of wooden stairs to view the caves. Then they'd rest and climb back up the 17 stories. not fun!! I can't even imagine having to do that. The wooden stairs are still there, I guess to remind guests how lucky they are that there's an elevator to bring you back up 750 feet, so you don't have to climb. Today, you can go down much further, about 75 stories, due to the elevators and paved walking path.

Carlsbad Caverns is also home to the bat flight, every night from mid-May to mid-October. Unfortunately we were a few weeks too early to see this phenomenon. Apparently at dusk, there are thousands of bats that exit the cave and it's supposed to be incredible to watch. Bummed that we missed it.

On our way out of the caverns, we started our long and boring trek through Texas. Holy wind! The dust storms were quite unpleasant and way more powerful than any dust storm should ever be.

Crazy dust storm in Texas

Notice the smile...obviously this was taken before the long, boring drive to Dallas!

We've decided that Texas is too large, too many farms, not enough wildlife, and in the city of Notrees, there were far more trees than in any other city we visited. Go figure...Texas is weird like that. Oh, and when you're bored, I guess it's the little things that get you excited. The odometer hit 43210 -- again, we don't miss a potential photo op!


The oil pumps in Texas are like weeds. Really, you look left, and can probably see 50 or so just in your line of vision. Look right, and hey there, it's another 50 or so oil pumps!



Then we had the unfortunate experience of seeing a truckload of cattle being taken to the slaughterhouse. I took a picture, so we can have a moment of silence for the poor cows. Finally, 6 hours into our drive, and there's HUMIDITY in the air! Hallelujah. I never thought I'd be so happy to sit in humid air, but my god does it feel perfect.



Tomorrow we're driving to Memphis and plan to hit up the all famous Rendezvous BBQ, thanks to a little birdie's suggestion. Can't believe we're already on day 7...it's all gone by too fast!