Day 19-Saturday, 17 Jan 09-Ft Stockton, Tex to Carlsbad, New Mexico

Photos: Aliens WILL suck out your brains if you aren't protected! Paisano Pete...biggest roadrunner in the world! We've had quite a day! We woke up to sun, glorious sun and although Wayne missed breakfast at the Roadrunner Cafe (home-made biscuits don't-you-know!) we had the next best thing--Egg McMuffins!

Jen's Aunt Maureen had lent me a book on National Parks and we've decided we're going to check off as many of them as we can--except for those in Utah and Colorado (cripes..there's SNOW there). We've already been to a few of them but there's two along our way, with a small diversion on our way to El Paso are the Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mts National Parks. We headed north on Hwy 285 and it was 185 miles of straight highway, through the scrubby landscape of Texas.

Two highlights along the way....Pecos and Orla, Texas. Now, Pecos was the town where all the real bad-ass cowboys hung out, drinking, carousing, and killing each other--also the home of the first rodeo in 1883. I was really looking forward to Pecos...you know, the saloons, the museums with guns and stuff. Unfortunately, nobody is stopping in Pecos anymore...not the cowboys, not the tourists...nobody! It's a pretty sad little run-down place with more boarded up stores and houses than Messena. However, it looks good compared to Orla! We stopped to look at a historical marker and it told us that the postmaster moved 1/4 mile up the road in 1931. In both places you can tell from some of the buildings that they are old...very old...in fact, I'm not sure what is holding them up considering the wind that blows across the plains. I did take a few photos...it's history.

We got to the New Mexico border and the flat landscape automatically changed to a more hilly landscape and we could see mountains in the distance. At Carlsbad we headed for the National Park and went through some beautiful areas. When we were at one of the nature reserves, I bought a Nat'l Park annual pass. The regular price is $80 BUT, if you are a senior (62+), the pass is $10 and that includes the pass holder and 3 other individuals in the car. The entrance to the caverns was $6 each...unless you had a pass and then it was nothing. Wayne loved that whole process.

The entrance to the caverns is at the top on one of the highest hills and the discovery of these amazingly, beautiful, gorgeous caverns is really interesting. In the early 1900's, a 16-year old boy who worked at one of the local ranches saw the huge flock of bats that left (the Mexican bats still reside in the caves from May-Sep) the caverns every night and thought it was smoke. He decided to investigate. When he got to the natural entrance, he went in and found this amazing place. He tried to tell people what he'd found but because he was young and uneducated, no-one believed him. It was years before he finally convinced someone to come and look and in the meantime, he had gone through, discovering tunnels and huge caverns. It is still being investigated and there are tunnels that are yet to be discovered. In some places, the original ropes and old ladders the boy and early investigators used to descent 100 or more feet.

The park has installed lights strategically through some of the caverns and it's almost like being in a church. The 'Big Room' is a massive cavern with equally massive stalagmites and stalectites and it's estimated to have taken thousands of years of dripping water and minerals to have created these formations. If you have a 'bucket list', add the caverns. It was incredible!

We intended to do both parks today but that was impossible...there was too much to see at the caverns (like we have somewhere to be!). They have various tours...the self-guided (which we did and took about 2 1/2 hrs), and then the more strenuous that required you to crawl on your belly through small spaces with a helmet and head-lamp. We're w-e-l-l past the point of crawling any distance for any reason other than free food or 1/2 price off coupons.

All in all, a spectacular day and if I wasn't excited enough about the sun, warm weather and spelunking, Roswell is just up the road! Yep, Roswell, Area 51, Alien Invasion site! I don't know if we'll get there but I've set the outside light on the van to blink out a code..."Take me, I'm ready to practice everything I've learned from 1,826 episodes of Star Trek". I may be blogging from outer space tomorrow. ha ha

Until tomorrow, love and hugs to all. xx