Day 4: Carlsbad Caverns, NM (Thursday February 12, 2015)

Another great day. We awoke to a sunny morning and headed off to Carlsbad Caverns. We decided to take the ranger guided King’s Palace Tour. It was a 90 minute tour with awesome limestone formations. There were 4 separate “rooms” or chambers: the Kings Palace, where weddings and concerts used to take place,the Queen’s Chamber, the Papoose Room and the Green Lake Room. The water is crystal clear and there was a mirror image of the stalagmites on the surface. Because the water is so clear, it looked very shallow rather than the actual 8 feet that it is. The caves were first explored in the late 1890s. It is mind boggling to imagine how someone would be able to grasp the beauty of the caverns using just lanterns and that was after an 800+ foot climb down into the caves on a makeshift ladder! Calvin Coolidge declared it a national Monument in 1923, and in 1930 Congress made it a National Park. Alas, either the bats were hibernating or had migrated (depending on the type of bat) so there was no massive sunset exodus, but we did check out the entrance where they fly in and out.

We then headed west under a sunny sky. For the most part the terrain was flat with scrub brush and mountains in the distance. It was windy at times and we saw our first tumbleweeds of the journey. The sunset was spectacular and we decided to call it a day in Lordsburg, NM about 15 -20 miles east of AZ. We will have an easy drive to Tombstone and Bisbee AZ tomorrow.


Cheers,
Wayne and Peggy