Carlsbad Caverns – Which one is the stalactite?

So, to answer the question, a stalactite hangs from the ceiling.  Stalac”tite”s hold on “tite” to the ceiling.

Aleksey and I woke up to the baking sun – well at least i did.  Aleksey was still in the shade while i was laying in the frying pan.  I got up first, which has been the case during this trip.  It is nice because i get to shower, clean and make food.  This morning I made one of my bean, chick pea, corn, and pea salads.  This was unfortunate for Aleksey while in large crowds.

The cave is beautiful.  We began by walking down a mile long winding passageway descending into the 700+ foot deep cavern.  We passed by stalactites, stalacmites, draperies (very wide stalactites caused by water traveling in wide currents down the rock), columns and fossils.  We then joined a tour that allowed us to enter into 4 rooms closed off to the public due to the delicate nature of the calcite formations.  In one of the rooms the rangers turned off the lights.  It was such a pleasurable experience being in complete darkness.  It is incredible to not have ANY light at all to focus on.

After a few hours in the cave we decided to take a break.  We did some needed planning for the next few days coming up.  Last thing before leaving Carlsbad National Park was to watch the tens of thousands of bats fly out of the cave at dusk to hunt for insects.  It was less intense than Aleksey and I expected.  We thought the light in the sky would be blocked out by the immense number of bats – this was not the case. There were still A LOT of bats, and was an incredible site, especially on such a beautiful and clear night.  On the way back to the car a bat was flying full speed directly at my head before making a sharp turn 3 feet before impact.  It was so close in fact that my heart jumped into my throat, I shielded my face and jumped to the side.

The beautiful pictures tken of the cave were taken with the canon camera you guys (mom and dad) got me for my birthday.  It works great!  I turned the shutter speed to 15 seconds to allow the camera to capture more light, and it worked beautifully.

We are now driving to Roswell, heart of the UFO culture in America.  I have a feeling it will be a quick stop.

The Ever So Eventful Trip to Carlsbad

Our long trip to the Carlsbad Caves National Park was full of unexpected surprises.  Instead of taking large interstate highways, Aleksey and I decided to take small, but fast traveling (70 mph), one lane highways.  Our first stop was a shallow section of a quick moving river where whole families were barbequing and swimming.  This was so refreshing after driving for 3 hours.

When we were about 100 miles outside of the national park, we hit some bad weather but we managed to avoid most of it.  In one of the pictures below you will notice snow on the side of the road.  This happened because it started hailing quarter sized pieces of ice for about 20 minutes.  We stopped underneath a bridge to wait it out.  Later on, we went into Walmart to do some produce shopping – we stop by Walmart A LOT now (we actually just left one).  We finally arrived at the campsite to a beautiful star-filled night sky.  The sleep was great.

San Antonio in the sun

After the long night out we were in no condition to drive, so we decided to sleep in the car.  Despite getting hot and having a sore neck, it was free and allowed us to stay in the heart of town.  We went to starbucks in the morning to make a post.  While Aleksey was doing all the work i got to figuring out what we were going to do in the city.  I talked to some locals and made a plan.

We had breakfast at a local mexican place called “Tito’s.”  Aleksey had some meat, egg and cheese concoction that was delicious and REALLY spicy.  I had a similar dish without the meat; it was also very spicy.  In addition to my super spicy food i had a very sweet milky and cinamminy drink:  I walked around for the next two hours learning that really sweet and really spicy don’t mix well.  Aleksey drank a coke made with cane sugar and bottled in an old fashioned glass bottle.

After breakfast we went to see “The Alamo,” the location where the Texan’s were beaten by the Mexicans.  It had beautiful architecture, but not as nice when compared to the Mission of San Jose that we visited later that day.  We continued walking around the town, which is something we have become very accustomed to doing; Walked along the San Antonio River, and then got back into the car and started driving to a camp site near Carslbad Caverns National Park.