Sid got up and made a wonderful breakfast for us before we set out for our next adventure. We can’t thank the Grants enough for their hospitality and friendship. What a cool experience for all! As we drove today, the terrain changed quite a bit from the flat lands of Texas to the bald mountains of New Mexico. We passed many oil rigs and wind farms that are still an amazing sight to see. As we entered Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the views were amazing. The kiddos made several remarks about how different the mountains of New Mexico are from our own. “Ours are covered with trees, but theirs really don’t have any thing on them.” Before going to the cave, we took a quick hike up to one of the vistas where you could see for miles in every direction! After taking in the sights, we headed to Carlsbad Caverns. At the mouth of the entrance, Lillian said, “What is that smell? I don’t think that I can go in there!” We explained to her that the hundreds of thousands of bats living there, eat half of their body weight nightly, therefore, they must all “go” somewhere. Therefore, the bat guano collects on the floor in the “bat cave” and can be up to 40 feet deep! Ugh! Nonetheless, we quickly got used to the smell and began our hike to the bottom. The cave was impressive as always and COLD! I can never remember how to determine the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite, so a ranger had a great way to remember - stalactites cling tightly to the ceiling while you might trip on a stalagmite since they are on the floor. You learn something new every day! Once we reached the elevator at the bottom, we were all ready to head to the surface. We decided that instead of staying for the bat flight which would take about 4 more hours, we would head on to El Paso and stay the night there to cut the driving the following day. The drive to El Paso was flat and straight. You could look out and see for miles, but never saw any civilization - NOTHING! No towns, no houses, no gas stations! Thank goodness I am married to a planner and he filled up in Carlsbad! A few hours later, we arrived in El Paso and checked into Hotel Camino Real which was a cool, historic building just across the border from Mexico. Jack enjoyed watching all of the hustle and bustle at the border and wondering what all of the people on the other side were doing! Everyone was hungry for dinner so we set out to find a restaurant to celebrate my 43rd birthday. We walked past a restaurant, Anson 11, right beside the hotel, but decided that we were a bit underdressed. We soon learned, however, that El Paso’s downtown doesn’t cater much to tourists and all of the restaurants close just after the banks do! We were all so hungry, we even thought about going to the El Paso Chihuahua’s minor league game that night to grab a hotdog, but in the end, we went back to Anson 11 and realized that we fit in just fine. We had a great meal which wrapped up an amazing birthday! I couldn’t ask for a better gift than to be on this adventure with my family!
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