Day 3 started about 6am in the camper, in some dudes driveway, with a lovable little kitty. We were all up, showered and ready to have a day with slightly less driving and some more actually seeing stuff that we drove this far for!
Once we were all in the van and everyone having petted the kitty who wanted to, we headed off to Little Blue House for some coffee and breakfast. Everything that they ordered was pretty amazing!
I say "they", because I was not there when they ordered. It was busy, small and as you might imagine, crowded. NOT MY SCENE! My bride know's my order as well as my distaste for environments such as this. I saw a young lady with three drinks in a holder, a large tub of hot cinnamon rolls and two young daughters, trying to figure out how she was going to get back to her vehicle while not losing any of these prized possessions.
I asked if I could help her carry her food out. I could tell when I asked her that she did NOT want help from someone like me with fuzzy hair, unkempt facial hair and just an overall goof... I pointed to Rob and Caleb and said, "I've been there...". She quite noticeably relaxed and asked me to carry the drinks and cinnamon rolls so she could be in control of her two girls. Smart mama, and my pleasure to help!
I always order my coffee black and the boldest that any place has to order. I will say that this place had some amazing coffee and back to everything "they" ordered, the food was amazing as well even though Caleb complained all the way thru his burrito that it was "too tiny". It wasn't.
Back to the point of the post, we had 9:30 pre-ordered tickets to Carlsbad Caverns and we were off in that direction. We pulled into the parking lot at 9:28, so just about perfect! The site's from the parking lot were breath-taking!
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| Wow. What a vast expanse!!! That shaded hill in the upper right quadrant is Guadalupe Mountians, which will figure into the story a bit later. Currently, it's hot and we're somewhat amazed by the scenery! |
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| I took a picture of this cactus and then realized that there were buildings built into the hill behind it. This became my favorite cacti until we hit Santa Fe... more on that in a later post as well. |
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| I zoomed in on this in a photo editor and all of the vehicles surrounding the buildings are park ranger-like looking trucks. It just looks hot! |
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| I think this picture had the first picture of lizard which caused me to shriek like a 3-year old girl!! I'm not kidding either. The fact that these cold blooded killers weren't herded and corralled years ago is still amazing to me... their hideous claws and deadly fangs and all. Terrorism. |
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| Uh, I think we found the cavern they show in the promotional materials. The pictures you see in advance do NOT prepare you for what it is actually like. Just like sunsets, ocean pics and so on... |
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GOOD LORD!! This thing descends pretty quickly! I had put quite a bit of thought into this particular descent. Why? Because, when I walk either at work or when we're working from home, the downslopes are the hardest on my calf muscles and in turn, cause some decent pain in the knees. I didn't want to be a big, fat sissy on the first day of vacation where we actually do something like this, but I also didn't want to ruin the rest of vacation because my friggin' legs hurt so bad. So, I was considering, and lamenting the fact, that I was considering taking the elevator down. I expressed this tidbit to my bride who researches this stuff to depths (pun intended!) that I just couldn't bother with. She calmly told me that someone had just posted on one her high-tech fancy interweb info thingy-ma-bobs that the elevator was out of service. Problem solved.
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| My loves a good many feet below me. This trail is remarkable as there is no way that you would ever slip and fall. Whoever planned this was on top of their game! |
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| I loved pictures like this where you could see a spot on the trail (the blue'ish spot) where you would eventually be, but you had NO IDEA how you were getting there or how long it would take! Good stuff! |
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| My wife, in a former life, was a high-school science teacher and an Earth Science major (this too will figure into the story later...) so she has good info on good authority to share with the critters. Will they listen? Up to them... |
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| I cannot describe anything in this picture, but I liked the aura of it, so here it is... |
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| I think that's Mama Chaos and Caleb, but I'm not 100% sure. One thing that I notice is that the depth of the caves we were seeing are not really showing thru in the pics. I remember this pic and you could see for a LONG ways in front of us. |
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| We were quite a good distance into the cave when we came up on the next round of switchbacks!! Can you spot Caleb, Rob and Mom in the upper left quadrant? We were so tiny in these caves! |
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| Another pic where you really can't tell the depth. My guess when I took this pic was that you were seeing at least 500 - 600 yards further into the cave. |
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| Seems to be a glitch in the matrix as Caleb's left leg has disappeared and he's fuzzy while only Rob's head is fuzzy. I don't remember this but it appears that some natural light is reappearing. |
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| Wow!! A picture with both varmints and neither one had a finger headed towards the others eyedrum or even worse! They appear to be at relative peace with some cool background too. |
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| Another moment that would have been tough to capture on last summers vaca, Mama & Rob in a mutually agreed on selfie. |
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| If I remember correctly, this was the Cathedral Room. |
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| Yet another pic where you can tell that our path is longer than it appears as the railings disappear into the landscape. The room in the back of this pic is a LONG ways away. |
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| The lad was like, "really?" when asked to pose in front of the Chinese Theater sign. |
So after a couple and a half hours under ground and seeing more and more of God's wonderful creation, we decided to take the elevator (it seems to be running, but you enter only on your on confidence!) back up the land of lizards.
We were going to to hike at Guadalupe Mountains back in Texas, but not before we had lunch! So we head back to Guadalupe Mountain Brewing Co. for some pizza, lemonade and beer. The beer and lemonade was good, but their pizza was outstanding!
Next we head off to Guadalupe Mountains for some hiking...
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