World United States New Mexico Living Desert State Park

Welcome to Jim and Liz's "Excellent Adventure 2005"

Carlsbad, New Mexico Oct 27, 2005

When we first started out way back in July, we felt like we had all the time in the world, so it's a somewhat rude awakening to realize that we're now pressed for time. We're leaving for Mexico (from Dallas) on November 2nd so we need to be in Dallas within the next few days. By the time we get back from Mexico, we'll only have about a week to make it home because we've promised our families we'll be home by Thanksgiving. Not to mention the fact that Sylvia and Irving (my grandparents), escaping the ravages of Hurricane Wilma, have been staying with my mother for several weeks and I have to get home before blood is shed! So we've had to make some tough decisions about what to skip (Grand Canyon, Lake Powell) and what to truncate (the rest of New Mexico). As it turns out, Carlsbad will be our last camping stop before heading home. As we pulled into the Carlsbad KOA, we knew we would end the trip on a high note. This KOA is without a doubt the most luxurious campground we stayed at. Though this KOA stays open all year, there weren't so many "guests" that we didn't have the run of the place. We selected a site in the tent-only section, which is referred to as the "tent carousel." This part of the campground is circular with pizza-pie shaped tent sites. Each site has incredibly lush grass (quite incongruous in the brown, dry desert), a built-in cooking workspace, water, electricity, night light and a short walk to the gorgeous bathrooms! Seriously, these immaculate bathrooms are far better decorated than the ones in our house! We spent an entire day exploring Carlsbad Caverns, which in addition to featuring amazing rock formations are home to thousands of guana-producing bats. During the summer at dusk, thousands of bats come flying out of the cave en masse, producing a spectacle the likes of which nightmares are made. You've seen The Birds, right? One of the neatest things about the park (officially called Carlsbad Caverns National Park) is its heritage as a 1950's-style tourist trap. Driving through the city of Carlsbad and approaching the caverns, you start to see billboards touting features of the park (Bats! Cave Formations! Underground Restaurant!). Underground restaurant? Absolutely! It actually reminded us once again of The Flintstones... I swear Hanna-Barberra MUST have been hanging around Utah and New Mexico when dreaming up their stone age cities. And uh, yeah, I was evidently WAY too fascinated with that cartoon. Jim never really got to watch that much TV when he was a kid, but that's another conversation entirely. After we got back from the caverns (no, we didn't stay to see the flying bat spectacle), Jim cooked our final campground dinner. We made a fire, poured a nightcap, looked at the stars and felt like the luckiest people in the entire world.

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