4/22 - Carlsbad Caverns

Wednesday, April 22– Waking to a mild hangover, I nursed it away with some water and an orange. We headed north aiming for New Mexico by noon. For three hours, we passed so many types of landscapes, from desert to mountain to plains and several unique variations of all three.

To the town of Carlsbad, we stopped at a Wal-mart for groceries for the next couple days, and arriving at Carlsbad Caverns National Park by two. Scratch that, it was actually 1 here since we crossed into Mountain time now. It was about 92 degrees, and there was no shade and no way I would be able to leave Dazey in the car, but there was no dogs allowed in the caves.

Luckily, this wasn't the first time a dog showed up here. For $5, Dazey spend a couple hours in an air conditioned kennel while we explored the caverns. The $8/person charge was waived as we were now park pass holders and we were directed to either the elevator down or the 1 mile natural entrance.

Obviously we took the natural entrance. Down we went, back and forth into the giant hole in the ground. We walked down and in for a while, snapping pictures of the strange scenery. I passed a young guy with a beard and overheard him saying something to a ranger. "…….Any good camping? I just go wherever I like……."

I had to ask him what he was doing or where he was camping. Turns out Robby is from Cincinnati, and has been on the road for 6 months now, traveling around the country on his Harley. He told us stories from Key West and New Orleans, and he had another month or more before his fund would run out.  Robby continued walking down the entrance to the caverns with us, and we all sat down to eat a sandwich at the "rest stop."

No food is allowed anywhere in the caves but here, and they have created an entire restaurant 700 feet below the ground. We used the bathroom down here, which was located in another little cave, then continued to the self guiding tour around this bottom area of the caves. Robby hung with us for a bit, and we took the elevator back up together, guided by a man who must have truly loved his job. Our 1 minute ride in the elevator was great. He told us when it was built (the 30's) and our speed (13 feet/sec) and that we were deeper than the empire state building. We rocketed out in no time.

Outside, Robby meet up with a ranger who he had been talking to. She was going to feed him and possibly let him stay there for the night. We gave him our number and he said he would call if he didn't stay there. We then saw a couple bikers that we had talked to the day before back in Big Bend. They wanted to know if we were following them. Picking up Dazey from the kennel, we headed out to find somewhere to camp. We took a little side road out, 10 miles on a dirt road. It was pretty cool but I regretted turning down it right away as it was about 15mph top speeds and one way so no way to turn around. It was a nice little side trip though.

We headed towards Slaughter Canyon Caverns on the other side of the park. Its very seldom used, but there is no where to camp, and it has posted no camping signs. So we turned down another random dirt road (pretty rough) but decided it was worth it when a small offshoot of it when down to a group of cottonwoods. We parked and checked out the area. A manmade dam collected water when it rained, and there was some cracked mud and cow manure around the cottonwood trees. We set up camp just a little bit away from the mud, next to a big stone fire ring.

We ate rice, corn and deviled ham spread on tortillas. They weren't too bad, but hunger makes anything a little better. Tyne set up her small tent and I planned on sleeping in the van. Some menacing looking clouds rolled in as the sun set but no rain, only an awesome sunset. We both wrote in our journals until well after it was pitch black, extra dark tonight with the low clouds blocking a lot of the stars.

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