Our Day at Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

Well, as you can see, this is a few days later. I have not been able to access Internet through Verizon Wireless or get emails for a couple of days, so that means I'm a little behind again. But this should be fairly short.

On our way through Carlsbad, NM to our campground we stopped at a light & Bill said look at that. He took a picture of this sculpture of a cowboy & steers & then a semi pulled up beside us. He had spotted his name on a building just through the intersection so I let the semi go & I just crawled through the intersection so he could get the next picture!
How about that! Not only do Bullock's have a Bullock's Hotel in Deadwood, SD, but a Feed & Seed store in Carlsbad, NM!!!

This was the next day, Mon. the 11th, when we were on our way to Carlsbad Cavern - rather dreary, but then we really didn't care, we were going to be underground at 56 deg. anyway.

This is one of the columns in the cavern. Not real clear & it took me all morning & part of the guided tour to figure out I had to make a setting change on my camera. Oh well, I'm blond (sort of), what can I say??

This picture was on the wall on the way into the restaurant/gift shop. It depicts the bats flying out of the natural cave entrance. I "might" not have minded seeing them from a distance - a g-r-e-a-t distance, but it wasn't summer yet so I don't know how many would have come out. We didn't stay long enough in the evening to find out. We also didn't go to the "Bat Cave" part of the tour either!

Now am I bored or what??? We sat eating our lunch - oh why do all these tourist places have to have such expensive food???? But I got a kick out of the signs on the table & this cup of water. It cost $.15 for the cup (water was free). The cup feels like plastic, but it says it's Made From Corn & 100% recyclable.

Picture of those neat windmills (we saw lots of those coming through western Texas).

Now, this one I love! If you can't read the fine print they are talking about achieving net-zero carbon air pollution by #1 - get this: Carpooling employees into the park! Now think about this.....maybe 40-50 employees carpool, but how many visitors drive up that same road to visit the caverns?????? Thousands in the summer months each day! Oh well, I guess every little bit helps!

Now this one I like

These pictures were from our afternoon guided tour. Kind of interesting, but sometimes it was hard to hear the ranger (gal) as sound carried all over the cavern. As long as she was talking in your direction you could hear. Bill got a little bored through part of it.

Pretty narrow passageway. But remember..........you can't touch anything either!

There was a discussion as to whether this was a column or a stalactite/stalagmite. It was the later, as a maintenance guy took a ladder & crawled up there & could put a credit card between them.

I think we both are canyon & caverned out! Enough of the underground. We think the Luray Caverns in Virginia were prettier. But they said all caverns are different depending on the minerals in the rock.

These are Strawberry Cactus outside the Caverns Building.

So that was the end of our State of New Mexico tour for this year. We did a pretty good job of zig zagging through the state from the northwestern corner to the southeastern corner. One thing I will say about New Mexico.....we saw more horses in that state than Kentucky or Texas! Also, brother-in-law Bob, we saw many fields of hay (alfalfa, whatever), that were cut, baled the old fashion small bales way & picked up the old fashion way, loaded by hand onto the wagon!! It wasn't until we were in Texas that we saw the bigger, round bales. Also we saw someplace where they were selling bales for $9.95! I think you'd better raise your price!

I have to tell you all a little story! Last year when our friends Denice & Chuck left AZ to return home, Chuck was sleeping & Denice ran out of gas! That was a pretty expensive lesson. Well, yesterday afternoon, Bill was driving & I was snoozing & when he woke me up to ask me a question about a town he heard me talking about. I looked at the gas gauge & it said E! I almost died! I said why did you do that? He said he wasn't paying any attention. Well, if you know anything about Texas, the towns are small & few & far between!!!! We have a big rig & we use diesel! Well next thing I knew, the little orange light came on & it beeped! Now God & I had a lot to talk about. Please, just help us get to a gas station that sells diesel!!!!! You know, he listened & answered those prayers. The first 2 stations didn't sell diesel, then we found this little repair place (Mack's, I think) & he had diesel. I would have paid $3.00 a gal. at that point. Didn't take a credit card at the pump, didn't want it ahead of time, & he came out to make sure we were okay (not quite full service, but close). When Bill filled the tank we had 2 gals. left!!!! Now that's what I call a breath & a prayer!

We stayed in Junction, TX last night at a KOA. It was right along the North Llano River. Nice place. It was about 100 miles from San Antonio. I cleaned all the bugs off the front of the rig & I dusted down & washed the truck. What a mess of bugs we had. The water was green!

We left Junction this morning around 10:30am & got to San Antonio, TX around 12:30pm. Tomorrow we are going to take a tour of San Antonio by bus. They are picking us up at the park at 7:55am & we will tour from 9am - 5pm. We will see The Alamo, Market Square/El Mercado, take a Rio Riverboat Cruise, see Mission San Jose, Japanese Sunken Gardens, Mission Concepcion & see "ALAMO....The Price of Freedom" at the IMAX Theatre. Then on Thursday we can go back on our own & walk along the Riverwalk. I hope we have a couple of nice days to take pictures.

We had lots of black clouds this morning, but then it turned out nice. I've been watching those clouds. I just pray we don't see any swirling black clouds!!!!

So, until next time............The Traveling Cardinal's