Sept 25

Up at the crack of dawn....ready to roll with the sun....Why? to Nordstrom's sale? a day at Disneyland? a day at the beach? Nooooooo. Have to get to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico so we can go deep into the earth where it is 54 degrees, dark, damp..........oh and probably beautiful. Actually to be fair, we should have 2 versions of today's blog....one for Kay's view and one for Dave's. You might be able to guess who is writing now.
As we cross Arizona and New Mexico we are amazed at the number of rigs on the road like ours....a 40 foot or so rv towing a small car behind. Before we got into this, we had never really noticed this. Also we are surprised by the number of people out here driving/vacationing/not working. Jillian, our GPS, is doing well.....she's been a wonderful help.
The black-eyed susans are plentiful and so are the ocatillos. Not long after passing the Continental Divide, we saw the Rattlesnake Springs picnic area.......no, we did not stop.
We arrived in Carlsbad too late for the last 3:30 tour.....who knew a cave would close. Our first time change hit today as we are now on mountain time.
However we are in time for the nightly "Bat flight" when thousands of bats fly out of the cavern at dusk and fly off ......to return in the wee morning hours. Apparently it can take 2 or 3 hours for all the bats to leave the cavern. There is a "Bat flight ampitheater" where you can sit and watch them take off into the blue/pink sky. If our alarm clock holds true, we'll be up in time for the 8 am ticket sales to actually go into the cavern. (We will not be opting for the 4 hour tour where you need to bring your own flashlight, extra batteries, and kneepads). So we are going to on the self-guided tour.