Carlsbad Caverns, Carlsbad, NM

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Today we moved to Lakewood, NM a little north of Carlsbad, NM.  We are at an SKP Co-op park called The Ranch.

This is our site for the next week.  First time visitors pay only $50 plus electricity for the week.  Electricity costs only $0.10 per kwh. People here are very friendly.

Here's the local jail.  However when you look through the door, it looks like a double hole outhouse. Ha Ha

This bus stop is just before you enter the SKP park. When we first saw it, there was a skeleton there. When we came back for pictures, the skeleton was gone.  We thought the skeleton added a lot!

Since it was late in the afternoon by the time we got setup, we decided to go to the caverns to watch the bats fly.

 This is the visitors center. Notice the large solar panel array.

This was the view on the way down to the bat amphitheater. The info board tells of the CCC building the building and the amphitheater. Most of the buildings you see are made of rock from the local area.

The amphitheater. We arrived early to get a "good" seat. We were not allowed to take any pictures. The opening is at least twice the size of the cave in Mason, TX.  I think that is why the bats appeared to be thicker in Mason than they appeared to be here at Carlsbad.

This was the sunset as we left the bat viewing. We are so blessed to be able to see so much of God's artwork.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018
We went back to the caverns to walk through them. We were told it would take about 1.5-2.0 hours. We took nearly 3 hours.  It was so awesome. There will be a lot of pictures without words. This may be a long post.

 Above and the next 2 below are as we were walking down into the cave.

Looking back up after we are down just a short distance.

The silver lines you see are actually handrails which are along much of the path down.  We descended about 750 ft down to the Big Room. 

 There were so many special formations that were amazing. The cave was said to be a constant 56 degrees F.  I carried a sweatshirt, but never needed.  I guess the hiking was enough to keep me warm.  Tic felt the same.

 This ladder and hole had an interesting story.  The ladder was placed there in 1933 during a cave exploration by National Geographic.  The ladder leads down to the Lower Cave which is another 90 ft down.

These "curtain" formations are actually that color. They were beautiful.

 This pond was called Mirror Lake. The reflections were great. You could actually read the Mirror Lake sign in the water.

 We couldn't get a decent picture of the Bottomless Pit so I'm showing this sign telling about it. The pit was actually 170 feet deep from where we were standing.

 The "rooms" were huge. How far can you follow the handrails?

 Painted Grotto

 Dolls Theater

Chinese Theater.

We really enjoyed our self-guided tour through all that was available for us to walk through.  Again so much of God's artwork.  It was a memory maker day!!!