ay to the dune's summit. Once there any resemblance to adult behavior flew out the window! I was a delighted child playing in the sand, rolling and jumping down the dunes, and completely en
gaged in the moment. The sand was very different than beach sand as it was gypsum and was very fine and soft to the touch. I also enjoyed covering my feet with the sand as it made them very cool and felt really good. We spent some time exploring various dunes and watched others who were sand sledding with real sleds gliding down the dunes. If you ever get a chance to go here, please do it! Very cool place and so completely unique and fun!Our next stop was one that Monica had been looking forward to for the whole trip! Emily and I were not quite as excited but were happy that Monica finally got to experience Roswell, NM. She is a huge fan of the X-Files and all things relating to the supernatural. We arrived at their main street and quickly realized how much Roswellians depend on their UFO connection to bring in tourists. Souvenir stores lined both side
s of the street, the street lights had alien faces on them, and even a loan office had alien faces on it. I imagined the pitch line driving by, “Why get a normal bank loan when you get an out-of-this-world alien loan from us!!. We parked the car and ate lunch at Out of this World Cafe. After lunch we headed to the main attraction: The International UFO Research Museum. It was pretty cool to read about all of the events that occurred in Roswell (apparently a UFO crashed there and the government covered it up) and to see evidence regarding UFOs around t
he world. I liked that the museum tried to maintain objectivity by providing counter evidence to many sightings by trying to explain the unexplainable. They had a whole display of UFO pictures that they rebuffed as hoaxes. But there were a lot more that looked pretty legit and its hard to think that we are the only intelligent life in an endless universe! I enjoyed the Roswell experience but there was not a whole lot to see there so we were on our way after a couple hours. Our next stop was one that I was very excited to see which was Carlsbad Caverns!We arrived there quite late at 4:30 Pm. By this time the trail into the caverns was closed so we had to take the elevator! The elevator??? It was a completely surreal experience to take a completely normal elevator down 800 feet below the ground into this huge underg
round treasure. Emily stayed up on the surface as elevators and being that far underground did not appeal to her. Monica and I were blown away by the cavern. The colors, formations of rock, stalactites and mites, and the size of this place were remarkable. We did the 45 minute loop trail and saw so many incredible sites. It was like a Bryce Canyon underground! It was hard to snap any good pictures as there was not much light but I was so captivated by the sites I will not forget these images as I burned them into my mind. We were in a space as big as 6 football fields and this was 800 feet underground! As we finished our underground fun, I noticed that they had restrooms down here. I had to use it even though I did not really have to go! The bathroom was pretty generic except for some of the exposed cavern rock that showed on the ceiling but still it was cool to use it. After our 
cavern experience, we made our way back to our world and spent two hours killing time in anticipation for the famous Bat Flight program that happened every night, which consisted of hundreds of thousands of bats leaving the cavern at the same time to live their nocturnal existences. We ate our dinner which consisted of mediocre salads bought at the visitor's center outside on a picnic table. The first thing we noticed was how overrun this area was with flies! Flies were everywhere and they would not leave our food alone! Finally after finishing our food, we were enjoying the surrounding scenery when this mutant wasp about the size of a small bird arrived very curious in our endeavors. I backed away slowly to not cause any commotion which could upset the wasp but unfortunately Monica acted a little differently and proceeded to literally jump onto and over the picnic table running inside! Luckily, the wasp left us alone and Emily and I enjoyed the hilarious site of Monica spazzing out . We made our way to the amphitheatre where we would be viewing the bat flight program. The rangers made it clear that for this experience to be optimal no one would not be allowed to take any pictures as the high frequency sounds can mess with the bats. Cell phones of course would have to be turned off and everyone would need to be very quiet. The ranger also said that no one knows exactly how the bats know when it is time to exit the caverns but they insist that no one is down there with a broom sweeping them awake. They say that likely they can sense a change in the air pressure or something as evening approaches. They had speakers that could pick up the high frequency sounds of the bats and when you hear their sounds than they are on their way out of the cavern and will be exiting in a few minutes. After hearing these sounds, I sat silently but nervously excited for this event! The bats soon appeared, a few at first but then steadily more and more flew out until all I saw was a swarm of black exiting out of the cave and into the dusk sky. They moved in a spiral formation as they had to turn to get out of the cavern and into the sky above. This was an amazing site! It looked like a black tornado that just kept going and going and going. I was mesmerized, truly tranced, until suddenly I heard the crying of a toddler a few ro
ws below. At first I ignored it as a crying toddler is quite normal. But the crying continued and most surprisingly the mother did absolutely NOTHING! No Shhhhh!, no scolding, no attention, no taking the child out of the area. Everyone began to glance at this commotion as the parents acted completely ambivalent to what was happening and this child began to act more and more obnoxious. It put a damper on the experience for me as we were shocked that the mother would not take the child out of the area to calm down. I realized how much more special this event would be if I were alone watching it in a natural setting without the hundreds of surrounding spectators. I understand why it is such a popular event but I wished that everyone else would just disappear so i could enjoy the bats in peace! However, overall, it was still an amazing event and by the time we left we were shrouded in darkness. We cautiously drove out of the park as they reported a lot of animals out and about at this time. We did see some deer but, luckily, they were a safe distance from the road. We drove back to the town of Carlsbad where we were surprised to see some flooded areas of the street. They must have had a wicked rainstorm as the water was almost above our tires in some places. It was interesting how we kept missing the wild weather. Barely missed the wildfires in Big Sur, barely missed the earthquake in L.A, barely missed the flooding in Alburquerque, and later we would barely miss the hurricane in Houston! We ended the night by going on just one of a few fast food binges of the trip. The girls had wanted ice cream and that quest led us to Wendy's where I enjoyed the combination of french fries and a frosty! (great combo if you have never tried it) It ended up being a very busy day overall but quite a memorable one!
No comments:
Post a Comment