Tuesday,
May 9th 2017
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| Next stop - from outside Big Bend National Park north to Carlsbad Caverns National Park |
We were glad to leave the extreme heat and bleak
landscape behind us to head to Carlsbad Caverns where even if it’s hot, the
caves are a pretty consistent 59 degrees. Now THAT’S more like it, and the sun
is not hot 750-900 feet underground!
For the first several hours there was hardly another
vehicle on the road. Then we hit “oil
country”. Truck after truck roared
passed us. Suddenly, a huge landscape
timber probably 8 feet long, 10 inch square flew up in front of us! Norman’s quick reflexes managed to avoid it!
Several miles later he avoided another that the truck in front of us went up and
over! I can only imagine the damage that would have caused had we hit it!
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| Our site at Carlsbad Cavern RV Campground was about a 30 minute drive to the National Park. |
We didn’t stop enough to stretch our muscles, so after
6 hours of driving when we finally arrived at Carlsbad Cavern RV Campground we were both stiff and tired. I was exhausted! We jokingly call the
passenger seat “the sleepy seat”.
We were escorted to our site, set up then decided to
muster some energy to get in the car and drive to the National Park’s visitor center to get
the lay of the land. From our campground the trip was 30 minutes, a bit further
than we had thought. Today the trip felt
like 100 miles!
A big attraction to Carlsbad Cavern National Park are the bats. Millions of them. Looking at the size of the amphitheater
right outside the cave entrance, I would say they are the featured
attraction! Each day (weather permitting
) there is a mass exodus at dusk where thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats to
begin their night of feasting on insects and return at dawn in what appears to
be black clouds.
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| The Natural Entrance where thousands of bats take flight at dusk each day, weather permitting. This cave was discovered by teenager Jim White, who thought there was a fire in the hillside. Upon investigation, what he assumed was a cloud of smoke, was actually a "cloud" of bats! |
I had read about this before the trip, so was prepared
when asked if we had been in any other caves.
But in 11 years? That had me
pausing. I went back to the computer and
looked for pictures to see what clothes, shoes and equipment we had been
wearing in our cave explorations of the past, so we would be sure not to enter
this cave with any of those. (Google’s
photo storage cloud came in handy)
Wednesday,
May 10th 2017
We drove back to the Caverns to tour the areas that
the general public were allowed to see. Walking along paved trails that are relatively level, you are a staggering 750 feet below the
service. ( Visitors can take the elevator down, or a steep paved trail that we chose ). This place is just mind-blowing.
Miles of huge subterranean chambers, such as The Big Room which is estimated to be 600,000 square feet ( or the size of 14 football fields ) with ceiling height maxing out at 255 feet! Stalagmites, stalactites,
and all the other “tites” were humungous, lit up by some engineering feat to
showcase some of this earth’s most unbelievable creations.
We spent several hours walking many miles with our
jaws hanging. What made our experience
even better was the lack of many visitors!
We practically had the place to ourselves, which eliminated hearing people
talk ( which echoes throughout the cavern) and of course the annoying flash of
cameras, or people taking selfies, blocking the view or path. Awesome luck, once again!
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| These were created drip by drip over thousands of years! |
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| Everywhere you looked you would see the most exquisitely decorated rooms. Note the "fans" coming from the ceilings. These all were created drip by drip! |
It was about 3pm when we surfaced above ground into
the bright, sunny day. Because sunset
was another 4 plus hours away, and we were rather tired, we decided to forgo
the possible bat emergence at sunset. It was extremely windy, and it was not
guaranteed they would take flight, anyway.
We hustled out early to make our reserved tour of the
caves on time. This tour called “The
lower cave tour” was described as one of
the more adventurous, with the usual warnings for anyone with physical
limitations or health issues. We are so
fortunate, that at our age, ( 62 and 68 ) we are not disqualified from doing
these fantastic tours!
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| Alison lowering herself down into the cave |
It was a lot of fun, but not the physical challenge we
had hoped for. After the dozen or so of us were fitted with hard hats, lights
and gloves, we took the elevator down 750 feet, then descended another 150 feet
by lowering ourselves with a rope, crawling through very narrow tunnels and
down ladders.
The park
rangers were terrific describing how precious these caverns are,
which were 250 million years in the making.
They related what the geologists have discovered, and the story of how
the cave was discovered.
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| Norm taking his turn crawling through this tight tunnel! |
At one point, we took turns exploring a long,
completely dark tunnel by ourselves in order to experience what the original
cave explorer, Jim White, felt being alone so deep in the cave. When we met up, the guide had us sit down and
turn off all lights as we sat soundless for several minutes in total,
absolutely complete darkness. A very
unusual sensation. I thought of those
unfortunate people that are totally deaf and blind.
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| We learned so much during this fun tour . |
This tour was very interesting, however I enjoyed the
views of the public viewing areas more than this dark, lower cave. Perhaps it was because of the lack of
lighting? We did things that were a little out of our comfort zone, so that is really neat!
If I had advice for someone,
it would be to do the cave tours first, then the large, public areas. What a place, and we were lucky enough to have 3 days to enjoy!
After emerging once again from the depths of the
earth, we again decided to forgo the awesome bat flight at dusk, 4 hours
later. ( Well, we are “elderly” you
know. )
