Day 2

We woke up in Carlsbad, NM and after fighting off requests to swim in the morning, we headed to the caverns.

I had purchased tickets to the earliest, shortest guided tour available last week, so we had to be there by 9:30 or so to make our 10am tour.

The drive into the park is really beautiful with lots of hills and scrub. The day was much cooler (70's) and overcast, so it felt like another planet after the 100+ days we had been having in Austin.

We arrived at the cavern entrance and headed in with our fleeces (everyone else had one!). We killed a little time in the gift shop were Pete purchased an Indian bead necklace (which was broken before the tour even started). We headed to the elevator and went down the 750 feet to the underground entrance.

At the bottom we were told to meet the tour at a spot near the elevators. Having half an hour to kill, we decided to explore the "big room" self guided tour. Despite the fact that the ranger had said we didn't have time before our tour, off we went.

We started walking and it was really amazing. Lots of beautiful formations and cool paths. We got to the first turn around spot and decided to keep going. Luckily I had learned from my parents that speed walking through museums and points of interest is ok, so we started walking... fast. We saw a lot of the interesting formations with names I can't remember (one drawback to this type of sightseeing), but I did keep reminding the kids to "look up".

We made it back to the meeting place with 10 minutes to spare... apparently just enough time to impulse buy miner's hats for the kids, which they instantly dropped during the ranger's introductory speech. The ranger then implored us to not turn on the headlights during the tour as there is light on the path and the formations are easier seen without them. Sigh. Another example of the dichotomy of making money to preserve the park vs. people ruining the park just by being there (which was kind of the theme of his 1.5 hr tour).

We made it through the tour even though the kids were ready to be done about half way through. Pete got a little freaked out along the way, but they were real troopers. Joe made a friend of a teenage girl who had a dinosaur figure she kept putting on rocks and taking pictures. He managed a few shots too.

We finished the tour, headed to the top, one more trip through the gift shop for a geode for Joe and then into the car.

The rest of the day consisted of lots of dvd's for the kids, cokes and China Mieville's "The City and The City" on ipod for me, rain showers (only showers thankfully) and driving.

We did stop in "the Valley of Fire" outside Carizozo and walked the trails. It's a really cool lava flow in a valley which apparently did not come from a volcano, but holes in the valley. The kids liked it and wanted to take some lava (we didn').

On the road one more time and made it to Albuquerque to Ryan's Dad and Step-mom's house.