Carlsbad Caverns (Sunday and Monday)

On Sunday, we drove from White Sands National Monument to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  Let's just say that driving in New Mexico is worse than Iowa, Wyoming, or Montana (hard to believe it could get worse, huh?).  It was so boring!  We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere the entire time we were driving.  After setting up Colbie, we relaxed for a bit before heading to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  We took two self-guided tours of the cave, toured around the visitors center a bit, and watched a short film about Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave (in Kentucky).  We were going to watch thousands of bats fly out of the cave at sunset, but we decided not to drive back to the park after dinner.  We hear that it is a neat experience though!

When we first got to the park, we rode the elevator down about 800 feet, toured the "Big Room."  The "Big Room" is enormous!  It is the second largest single room in a cave!  It is the size of 4 football fields (if I remember correctly)!  It was neat to see the different formations within the huge room.  We finished the afternoon by taking the "Natural Entrance Tour."  Instead of taking the elevators out of the cave, we hiked about 1.25 miles out of the cave.  Again, it was interesting to see the different formations along the pathways.  This cave is huge!  It's grand size is nothing compared to the cave that I have been to in Minnesota (Mystery Cave, not far from Rochester).

On Monday, we did the Kings Palace tour at Carlsbad Caverns.  It was actually the only guided tour we could sign up for.  If you are ever planning a trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, book your cave tours well in advance (if you would like to do a more "off the beaten path" cave tour).  We wish that we would have booked a cave tour further in advance, for it would have been neat to do a more primitive cave tour.  But, the tour we did do was great for families and people without much time at the National Park.  The ranger taught us about the founding of the cave, early explorations, and just some general history about Carlsbad Caverns.  It was very interesting!  Once the cave tour (about an hour and a half) was finished, we headed on our way to Texas! 

First entering the cave 

 

Neat formations!

 

 

Patrick, posing for a picture



 

Nice, natural-looking lighting

 

 

A narrow passageway

 

Look at that huge stalagmite

 

One of the first ladders used to explore the cave

 

 

Ahh, we're trapped in here :)

 

I think this is called the "Whale's Mouth"

 

 

Looks like a waterfall!

 

 

Veiled Statue formation

 

 

This one is called the "Lion's Tail"