Carlsbad Caverns

After we left Rooster Cogburn's place our next stop was Colossal Caves. We saw some nice scenery as we were driving up to the entrance to the caves. As we were driving along, I said to Jade, I think that's a crown cactus over there! Sure enough it was. It was in the distance a bit, but we managed to get a picture of it. They are very few and far between. We had to make sure we sent a picture of it to Jeff!! He showed us one on our road trip, so we thought it was pretty cool that we had found one on our travels.

Next stop Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. We stopped at a corner store for gas, and we picked up a couple of souvenirs as well. This store was pretty interesting. There were alien statues outside and all of these animals inside. - quite the eclectic place.

We also stopped because we saw a sign for rest rooms.....We played it safe and "stood outside each other's curtain"

This place was super cool!  

This statue with the bats flying around it was in the main lobby where you go to pay for entrance to the caverns. We were able to  use our America the Beautiful pass we purchased at the Grand Canyon, as this is a National Park. 

The natural entrance to the park was closed so we had to take the elevator to get down into the caverns. We had originally planned on using the natural entrance, but since it was closed we didn't have much choice. It wasn't till we got home, that I looked at what the natural entrance looked like......I'm pretty thankful for that elevator...or we might be still there walking down all those twisty paths!

We went 750 feet down in an elevator to get to the entrance to the caves. It was MASSIVE. There were stalactites and stalagmites all over the place and some of them were really really big.

It's really hard to get good pictures down here. It's best if you don't use your flash so you can see the lights behind the structures but without the flash you need to have a really steady hand to take the shots. I did the best I could. It was something else.....definitely a must see.

Glad Jade had this on our list of things to see.

Chow for now

Jacqui