Carlsbad New Mexico

We arrived in Carlsbad NM on Friday.  In the afternoon we visited the Living Desert State Park where we saw desert plants and animals. It was a little dry in Carlsbad since they have not had rain since last September.  Even though it was dry and hot (98 degrees) the cactus was flowering.

 Then on Saturday, we went to the Caverns for the day.   The caverns are huge. The main room is the size of 6 football fields and a 747 can fit inside of it.  The formations were beautiful with lots of stalagmites, stalactites, columns, flowstone and draperies.  We stayed to see the bats exiting the cave in the evening.  It was pretty cool to see the cave swallows all fly into the cave to their nests and then 10 minutes later all of the bats flew out. On Sunday, we took an adventure cave tour to the Hall of the the White Giant.  The group consisted of 8 tourists and three guides.  This was a true speluncking adventure complete with helmets, lights and kneepads that only lasted 3 ½ hours..   We entered the cave through the corkscrew and climbed through castration rock.  After a brief break at the decision room, we continued on our hands and knees through the passage until we reached the pinch.  To get through the pinch it was necessary to lie on your side and slither through like a snake.   After some more crawling, we reached the 15 foot metal ladder which was only 12 inches wide.  We climbed up the ladder and continued on to the knotted rope which assisted in climbing the 80 degree slope which was made up of wet slippery flow stone.  From that point on, it was mostly crawling and walking through the cave until we reached the dramatic view of the white Giant .  This was a huge room (200 feet across and 300 feet wide) in the cave with beautiful formations and an enormous 30 foot high white stalagmite.  Of course, in order to return to the surface, we had to go back the way that we came.  It was an extremely challenging excursion especially for us older folks.  We didn’t need to buy souvenirs of the tour since we have all of the black and blue marks to prove we were there.  Sorry, but we have no photos of the spelunking because we couldn’t even bring water bottles with us. 

Currently, we are driving to Albuquerque and are passing cattle ranches, pecan farms and

Pronghorn as we travel.