Like this:

And, we’re back.  104 pictures.  We hope that makes up for the recent photographic drought.  There are a few doubles in the album – flash on / off.  We either couldn’t pick the better photo, or we thought that each method of taking the picture captured something different within the cave.

We spent the night in Roswell, NM (on the way – roadkill #2, a bird) and got up to go see some of the quirky alien stuff.  Our first stop was the Alien Zone.  It cost $1.50 each and we took some ridiculous pictures with their many “Alien Scenes”.  It was entertaining but did not tell about the “Roswell Incident of 1947″ like we hoped.  Our next stop was the International UFO Museum & Research Center.  This museum had tons of newspaper clippings and affidavits about the supposed alien landing that the government claimed was just a weather balloon.  Many of the buildings and businesses have some sort of hokey connection to aliens.  For example, the Arby’s sign says “Aliens Welcome”, the McDonalds playplace was in the shape of a spaceship, and the Wal-mart building has a painting of a spaceship on the outside.  After staying in Roswell a bit too long, it was on to Carlsbad to see the caverns.

Sadly, our much anticipated visit to Carlsbad Caverns National Park was a big letdown.  We were both really looking forward to seeing the cave and hiking down to it.  First, we arrived 20 minutes too late to hike to the cave by the natural entrance and we had to take the elevator down 750 feet to the cave floor.  The cave was so big that it did not feel like you were in a cave at all.  They had lights illuminating many of the interesting formations. It was neat to see all the stalactites and stalagmites, especially where they have joined and formed columns.  However, there were very few informative signs in the cave.  They offered a “Guided Audio Tour” for purchase but at other national parks that we visited the park signs contained enough information for us.  In the 1.2 mile loop of the Big Room there were about 25-30 numbered posts that you could listen to the audio tour to find out what you are looking at.  We just were not impressed with Carlsbad Caverns – to be fair, it was partly because we were upset that we missed out on the hike in by 2o minutes (Will read the the time wrong yesterday when he looked it up- he thought the last time was 2:30 but it was actually 2:00) but we felt the guided audio tour was necessary to really enjoy the cave.  Also, we both agreed that Linville Caverns outside of Boone, NC is a more interesting cave to visit.

Our new estimated arrival is December 17th – we keep finding ways to shave off days since we are just about ready to get home.  Tomorrow, we hit the road to Austin and San Antonio, and then, we’ll drive all the way to New Orleans where Hotwire.com currently has some pretty sweet deals.

And, thanks again to Kathleen’s dad for donating more of his hotel points tonight!

Advertisement