Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Park entrance, New Mexico.
February 11, 2019
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located in the Guadalupe Mountains of Southwest New Mexico. It was first declared a National Monument in 1923 by President Calvin Coolidge, and later a National Park in 1930 by an act of congress.
After a 5:30am flight from Orlando, FL to El Paso, TX, (thanks Dad, for driving me to the airport that early), I rented a tiny Ford Fiesta. This little car had fantastic pickup and excellent gas mileage to zoom about 80mph on route 62. It was a crazy day because winds were like 50mph. You could barely stand outside. I was also shocked at how cold it was.
route from El Paso
After about two hours I finally approached the park entrance sign! It was about 9 more miles to the visitors center. On the switchbacks up, there was a little traffic jam because there were TWO pronghorns (or perhaps antelope) up on the cliff and a BABY pronghorn right on the road. Unfortuantely since I was driving, I didn’t grab a photo because I didn’t wan’t to run over the little fella!
Once I reached the visitors center I swiped my annual pass and got a ticket to enter the cave. You could either take an elevator down or use the natural entrance. I think it’s great National Parks are so accessible for the disabled, but since I have two working legs I definitely opted for the natural entrance. It was going to be about a 2.5 hour walk, so I returned to my car and unloaded everything from my backpack except my camera, water, and a map.
I had just recently watched Aladdin with my niece, so I couldn’t help but think, “Who disturbs the cave of wonders?” on the way down. Once inside, I also couldn’t help but chuckle to myself thinking that as an editor, I’m in my natural habitat. Visitors are asked to keep conversations to a minimum, it’s very dark (zero natural light), cool temperatures, and dripping water. (Sometimes our buildings leak when it rains.)
The caves are difficult to photograph; I did my best without a tripod. For educational purposes, I also take pictures of the informational signs next to exhibits. I’ve used them verbatim as captions here, as I’m not a geologist by any means. Whenever I go to places like this I “regret” sleeping through my 8am geology class in college. But it was sooooo early, and sooooo boring.
