Road Trips & History Lessons pt.2 - Roswell & Carlsbad Caverns

After leaving Lincoln we headed towards Carlsbad Caverns, passing through Roswell. O.K. now I'm sure everyone thinks of one thing if you say Roswell, NM. Of course you do....alien crash and Area 51 - o.k. o.k. that's technically two things. Yes, I know Area 51 is in Nevada...but they had to get the alien that they're covering up from somewhere....so where did they get it? At the WalMart of course (*laughs*)

HEY - did you know they even have UFO H2O at WalMart.....at least in Roswell they do (*laughs again*)

What can I say....the people of Roswell really really get into the whole alien thing. Now I know you're wondering....did a UFO really crash in Roswell. Well I can't say with 100% certainty, but I guess people know a money maker when they see one. I'm not lying when I say that almost every store had some type of reference to aliens....shoot Arby's even had a sign that said "Aliens Welcome". So....I'll let you draw your own conclusions...but the kids got a kick out of seeing so many aliens.

We spent the night in Artesia, NM. A quaint little town with a very large oil refinery. The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed down to Carlsbad Caverns. History lesson, history lesson.....*"in the 1800's settlers discovered the cavern, drawn to it by the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of bats rising up out of the natural entrance in the evening."

Upon further exploration of the cave many of the settlers remained and began to mine the bat guano and sell it as a natural fertilizer. Jim White, a cowboy who was fascinated by the caves, spent hours exploring the cave. He was eager to show others this natural wonder that he had found but most were sceptical until photographs convinced them.

In 1923 the U.S. Department of the Interior sent an inspector, Robert Holley, to see if the caverns were a natural scenic wonder. Later the same year, Carlsbad caverns was proclaimed a National Monument.

Upon arriving at the caverns, we proceeded into the information center/gift shop/restaurant and purchased our tickets. Now, there are technically two ways to enter the caverns.

We took the "Natural Entrance" which consist of a one mile route leading you down 750 feet into the cavern. The trip takes about an hour and let me tell you.....even though it's ALL down hill, your legs really wont thank you for this one!!!! As you descend into the cave, you enter what seems like a world of make believe. There's so much to see.

We finally reached "the lunchroom" where they had restrooms and a snack bar and little tables set up to sit down, catch your breath, and have a snack. BD bought a few bottles of water and we all sat down to plan out our next strategy. There is another self guided tour that you can take around the "Big Room" and there are also a couple of ranger guided tours you can take.

The ranger tours have limited space and there is an extra fee. The ranger tours were sold out the day that we went but when we go back we'll make advance reservations for these because there are some places that would be nice to see that we didn't get to.

The "Big Room" is a self guided tour that also is about a mile in length but takes about 1-1/2 hour to complete. The good news???? It's all fairly flat and easy to navigate which I can honestly tell you...my legs DID thank me for that (*laughs*). I can't even begin to describe the magnificent things that we saw while exploring the "Big Room". We passed through the Hall of Giants, the Temple of the Sun and passed Mirror Lake. We looked into the Bottomless Pit, and observed the Rock of Ages.

I did take lots and lots of pictures, unfortunately the better ones were taken without the flash, requiring a rock steady hand - and after hiking 1 mile, 750 feet down.....lets just say my hands weren't the only things not stable. But I did manage to get several great pictures. I wished I could share more with you here, but there's just not enough room. (If you'd like to see more pics, feel free to check out my album on Facebook)

After wandering around in the caves for over 2 hours it was time to head up and out. Now don't panic, and I know a few of you were...NO we didn't have to trek back up the 1 mile natural entrance, we did what any sane, rational person would do....WE TOOK THE ELEVATOR!! We meandered around the gift shop for a while, and YES the kids did get more than just a T-shirt (*laughs*). All in all, it was a very enjoyable day, and one that I would repeat.

We are planning to go back to the caverns sometime this summer. They have an outdoor theater set up where you can go and watch the bats enter the cave in the early mornings or exit the caves at dusk. Can you imagine??? hundreds of thousands of Mexican Free-tailed bats exiting the cave? I think that would be an amazing thing to see. We left Carlsbad Caverns and headed home. Everyone was pretty tired so much of the trip home was spent snoozing - at least me, BB & LB got in a few zzzz's. We had a wonderful weekend!!!


*exert taken from the Carlsbad Caverns' tour brochure