We visited the final national park on our tour today...Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad, NM. Once again we were not disappointed!
After checking in and getting the kids' passports stamped, we headed toward the cavern. We decided to take 2 self-guided tours. The first tour had us entering the cavern and walking 1.25 miles down to get to the "Big Room". As you can see from the pics above all we had to do was walk to the "big hole in the ground" as the ranger put it. It was an 800 foot decent. They have an elevator to take you up and down but we wanted to experience the walk ourselves. We were oohing and ahhing on the way down. A man came by us and said, "Just wait until you get to the Big Room." He was right!
The images above and below were just a few of the 50+ images I took with my phone. It was amazing to see it. The second tour was in the Big Room. It was another 1.25 mile hike around a cavern that is 14 football fields long. Stalactites and stalagmites riddle the room, both big and small. This is only the upper room...we are not allowed down in the lower room. Only scientists are allowed there. Jim White discovered the cavern originally in 1898 at the age of 16. New areas are still being discovered in the cavern today! I had a terrible time choosing the images...there were so many to choose from.
We spent about 4 hours underground before taking the elevator back up. The kids then set out to earn their junior ranger badges for the park. We attended a ranger session and then they completed the proper work to earn their badge.
We hung around the park for one final adventure. Every evening, at dusk, during the summer Mexican Free-tail bats fly out of the cavern to get their fill of insects. Approximately 200,000 bats flew out tonight! It was like a black cloud filling the sky. The bats came out by the hundreds or thousands at a time for the first 15 minutes. It slowed down a bit but they continued flying out for another 25 minutes. We were not allowed to take pictures during this time but the image will be with us forever!
Alayna is the proud parent of a bat at the park. She spent $5 of her own money to adopt/sponsor it. She was able to name it...she would like to proudly introduce "BB Jo Wagner" as the newest member of the family. (Grandpa HeeHaw would be proud). She was asking for name ideas. I wanted her to name it Acro Bat, but it came in a close second.
As we were heading back to our cabin Brayden said he couldn't believe we were heading home tomorrow. He is not ready for it to be over. There is no doubt in my mind this experience will live with our kids forever!
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