Today we visited Carlsbad Caverns which some have labeled the 8th Wonder of the World. We took a self-guided tour of the Natural Entrance and Big Room locations. There were 50 stops throughout the tour where we listened to recorded messages. It was very informative and extremely beautiful. Once we finished the tour, we took the elevator back up over 700 feet to the surface. We learned that new areas of the caverns are being discovered and explored by scientists. We had hoped to view the nightly flight of bats out of the cavern. However, we learned that they migrate to Mexico for the winter and will be returning later in the spring.
We then took a 9 ½ mile scenic drive on Walnut Canyon Desert Drive. This is a gravel one way road that loops through the desert mountain scenery. We stopped along the drive to take a 45 minute hike on Rattlesnake Canyon Trail. Fortunately, we did not see any rattlesnakes! The hike was strenuous and it was very hot. We wisely cut it short and did not complete the entire trail. We were very glad to get back to the car!
We leave tomorrow for Santa Fe which is about 5 hours away. We are not sure yet if we will spend the night there or go down to Albuquerque for the night.
Here is a link to some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tschick62/CarlsbadCaverns?feat=directlink
More later . . .
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