Carlsbad Caverns

Going to Carlsbad Caverns wasn't an obvious choice. It was the only thing between Santa Fe and Austin, TX that we really wanted to see, and was surrounded on both sides by pretty much nothing. Elijah had an intense memory of having been to the caverns as a boy. It was this potent memory that was the only factor in choosing that direction on our way to Austin. Not that long outside of Santa Fe we lost internet and cell coverage and we pretty much didn't regain it-- apart from the hotspot at the KOA-- until we were within forty miles of San Antonio. The one highlight of the journey there was driving through Roswell, NM and spotting all the green alien signs all over the place. It was already too late in the evening to visit, but we passed by the International UFO Museum and Research Center on the main drag in Roswell. The front looked like an old movie theater, but the girl at the Starbuck's said it was worth going to the first time, if nothing else because they recently used all of the props in the museum for a movie about Roswell.

Approaching Carlsbad after hours and hours of flat barren desert is a pleasant surprise. The canyon one drives through to get to the caverns is beautiful.

Even the walk from the gift shop and cafeteria to the entrance of the cave is beautiful.

As we began our descent into the ground the last thing you see are these rock walls and little birds that look a lot like the bats that come out later at sunset, swooshing back and forth from the eves of the opening.

We chose to take the long walk down into the cavern instead of the elevator. It adds an extra mile to the walk, but the intensity of slowly winding around a path down deep into the earth is well worth the extra walking.

The first thing we did when we got to the bottom was go to the bathroom because there wasn't another one during the whole hour long walk through the cavern. One thing about bathrooms in a cave 800 feet underground, the stink has nowhere to go, even though they are flush toilets. The snack bar and gift shop underground was strangely space age and odd after the hour of climbing down through vast cave chambers.

Izzy is not very fond of dark closed spaces. He kept talking about how he missed the sunlight. He was very nervous and sensitive to all the sounds in the cave, so I gave him the kid camera for much of the journey, to keep him entertained and keep his mind off the darkness. It was very hard to take pictures of the rock formations in the dark. I tried all three of our cameras before I found a way to get some of the images I wanted. Izzy had less luck, but he did a great job of documenting us on our journey along the trail.

Eli: We went to the Carlsbad Caverns. We went on a long winding trail. Finally we came to a rest stop. After the rest stop then we went to a place called the big room.

Eli asked this ranger if the rock above us was a stalactite or a sheet. She answered that she thought it was a stalac-sheet. That sometimes the words we give things are only there to help us understand and communicate, but are not totally accurate. I'm not sure he bought it. We tried to reassure him that this was the reason he wasn't sure which classification to give it.

This image Izzy took of himself is very Blair Witch, in truth he was very nervous inside the caves. Dark and echoey places are not his favorite thing. He kept asking when we thought he would see sunlight again, like it might not happen.

The caverns themselves are just amazing. There is not really a way to describe the intensity. I kept imagining what it might have been like to stumble across caves like that thousands of years ago. Or even when they were first discovered in the early part of the twentieth century. The heaviness, the darkness, in contrast to the vast rooms of limestone rock formations is absolutely a unique experience. I could not open my eyes wide enough to take it all in. It's a shame that there are so many people in there, because the silence and isolation of it are also impressive. But it only matters a little bit that other people pass by you on the trail. Everyone seemed changed, more reflective, or in some cases anxious and disturbed by the cave.

In the cavern we saw these little lights perched everywhere that weren't turned on. We started joking that they were alien robots.

 
Izzy: At the Carlsbad Caverns there were robot aliens. They kept us safe.

Eli: Four types of rock formations in the caverns are stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and popcorn.

Hannah: I liked inside it, because I liked the doll theater, the crystals, and the little lake.