Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

Monday, October 01, 2007
Today was dedicated to visiting Carlsbad Caverns National Park. However, prior to reaching that location, I stopped by the Carlsbad Ford dealership to get their opinion of my leaking antifreeze problem. They agreed that it looked like the water pump was leaking. I scheduled it to get fixed on Tuesday because they didn’t have the part on-site. It had to be shipped in from Albuquerque. So tomorrow will be a day of getting the engine fixed. Carlsbad Caverns was a great experience. For all of you Virginians, if you have been to Luray Caverns it has some similarities but some major differences. The cave is huge and deep. If you enter the natural entrance, you walk about 1 mile down a twisty trail that descends 880 feet. The bottom has something they call the "Big Room", which is the largest cave room in the western hemisphere. People don’t come to Carlsbad for just the cave, they come for the bats. The cave is home to a colony of 300,000+ mexican free tail bats. These bats exit the cave each evening and it looks like a cloud of black dots rising into the sky. We couldn’t take pictures because the camera equipment messes with them, but trust me, it is a sight to see. The bats exit at about 5,000 per minute and they don’t stop for over an hour. If you do decide to see the bats be sure to find out if they are around. The bats migrate to Mexico in the winter (mid-October), we almost missed them ourselves. I hear that the real treat is watching the bats descend back into the cave in the early morning hours. Neat fact for the day: in the 1920s folks made good money hauling bat poop (guano) out of the cave for fertilizer. They estimated that they recovered 100,000 tons of it. Personally, I don’t know how the bats could stand it. You’d think the pile would reach the ceiling eventually.

Sunday, September 30
Today we migrated to Carlsbad. Once again, we traveled over some very uninhabited areas of New Mexico. The kids were excited to arrive at the KOA and enjoy the pool. Bailey has really improved her swimming with the assistance of her flotation device. Today had a roadrunner sighting which was our wildlife encounter for the day. We wrapped up the day with marshmallow roasting.

Saturday, September 29, 2007
Today was really a travel day and not much more. We went to WalMart to stock up on some things, particularly antifreeze. The old RV has still got a small leak. However, in the 4 hours of driving today, it only lost about 1 quart of antifreeze. Since tomorrow is Sunday, we are planning to drive to Carlsbad and get it fixed there. I think I have observed it leaking from the water pump, Sheri’s brother suspects a seal has cracked. We drove from Durango, Colorado to Albequerque. Along the way we hit some of the worst winds we have seen. It was so bad it unrolled our awning while we were driving and without the awning coming out. Thankfully a local gentleman and his wife stopped and helped us. I’m not sure we could have fixed it without his help. We entered NM at mile 11,029.