Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell

I left Alamagordo in the morning and headed the scenic route through Cloudcroft on the long road to Carlsbad. Again, I was faced with the dilemna of really having to pee on an open highway, yellow grass, no trees, and no towns. NM has seen more of my backside than any other state.

I arrived in Carlsbad Caverns around 12:30 (four hours later), and made it in time for the Lower Cave Tour. There is a basic tour that anyone can do and a few tours that are daily or weekly - this one is once a week. I decided to do it even though it meant I had to come back the next day to hike down the natural entrance and see the Big Room the next day. I took the elevator to the cave (it goes 9 miles an hour - 750 feet in approx 9 seconds(?)) and awaited my tour. You get dropped off in the snack bar area- where you can eat underground (oooh). There were 11 folks on y tour with two rangers leading us. They made us introduce ourselves and tell our cave experience and I was the winner (caves in Va and Pa, spelunking in lava tubes in Hawaii, hiking lava tubes in NM, and rafting caves in NZ). We donned our helmets and gloves, went through a gate off the big room, repelled (is that how ou spell it) backwards down a line, went down three ladders, and walked down a hill to enter the Lower Cave. Fantastic. We had to wear gloves bc some places were tight squeezes and they didnt want our hand oils to touch the formations and kill them (oils on your hands prevent any further deposits from sticking). This tour took about two and half hours and was really neat. We had to crawl through one place which I thought was fun. When the tour was over, we had to leave (they close this place early) and I remembered that I was supposed to find Barry Oost and deliver a message from Jay Snow, a ranger I met in Death Valley. The lady leading my tour knew them both and told me I should get Barry's schedule when I arrived the next day.

I went back to town and decided that I was going to stay in a hotel (my first one) so I would have internet access - also bc the two campgrounds I saw were really run down looking and the next closest one was an hour away. I grabbed some dinner from the No Whiner Diner and then went to the drive-in. I have never been to drive-in and I thought it was fun. I saw the Bucket List which reminded me somewhat of my travels, and maybe we should all make a list of things to do before we 'kick the bucket.'

The next morning, I was at Carlsbad when the opened and I discovered that Barry was not working. Oh no! So I had to write a note. Want to know what the message was that I was supposed to pass on? "Jay Snow said that you were uglier than him." I do not know Barry or even what he looks like - we will see if he emails me.

I walked the Natural Entrance to the cave and descended. There were several funny signs telling me to stop and assess my fitness to see if I was up for this mileish steep trail down into the darkness. This opening is quite large and in the summer you can sit in the amphitheater and watch the Mexican Freetail Bats come spiraling out at sunset. The hike down is awesome and well worth it.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about Carlsbad Caverns. We have caves and caverns in VA and I have been to a few... so how different can it really be? Well, Carlsbad Caverns is FREAKING HUGE, it is 750 feet underground, and the whole thing is full of huge detailed formations. It dwarfs anything I have seen before. I probably spent four hours underground between the hike down and the tour of the big room. I loved it.

Caves done - Roswell and Aliens here I come. My car had been driving funny and I had talked to Dad about it, and when I got into Roswell a light came on my dash. I didnt know what it meant so I stopped at the Ford dealership to ask. A guy came out and looked at it and said it was my check engine light. Unfortunately at 230 on a Saturday there were no ford technicians (what!). He suggested some garage which I promptly forgot the name of. A light has never come on in my car before, and since I am so far from home and still have a long way to go, I decided I should proably get it looked at. I went over to the visitor's center to ask where theharley dealer was and while I was there the guy called his dad who called a garage who would look at my car for me. The guy told me i really wanted to go to a local mexican garage bc they are more honest bc they arent trying to fill quotas blah blah blah. So I went where they sent me. It reminded me of the garage in Mineral and the guy, "Mundo" (that's what his shirt said), was the nicest guy. He asked me what my car was doing (I told him it felt like the engine was jumping) and hooked up the computer. He explained to me how it worked and determined that my sparkplugs were misfiring. So he took them out, looked at them, measured them, showed them to me. He asked me if I had ever had them looked at before, I didn't know. My car is almost at 100,000 miles... it probably is time for some things to be old. Yep, replace them. He called the parts shop, they brought them over, he put them in, started my car and I could SEE the difference. Before when my engine started it really vibrated and with the new sparkplugs and wires it was much smoother. YAY.

Unfortunately, now it was 430. Places started to close. I did make it to the HD, but not to the UFO museum. I did convince the lady she needed to let me in to squish a penny bc the machine was all the way at the back, but she followed me in and out to make sure I was leaving. Downtown Roswell is funny and definitley alien-themed. The street lamps have alien eyes and a lot of the shops have aliens in them or themes. I got a cup of coffee at the Not of This World Coffee shop - a chocolate martian latte, went to photograph the spaceship looking McDonalds and the Alien-covered Walmart, and got out of town.

Once again I ventured off into empty highways and made a pitstop off the median. It was dark this time and easier to tell if anyone was coming. Only the cows as my witness. I stopped for dinner at the only place around, but who cares when Penny's Diner really is that good? Maybe worth a drive out of the way?

My stop for the eveing was Villanueva (viya-new-wave-a I have the hardest time pronouncing this) to couch surf with Amanda (she had told me about the Walmart). Amanda lives in the middle of nowhere - like me. So this morning, after sleeping in late, we drank coffee and watched the birds - just like I do with mom. Tonight we are going to her part-time house in Santa Fe bc the snow is coming (SURPRISE!).