A Day In The Life - 7/02: Carlsbad Caverns

It's a funny thing about caves. They're never where you expect them to be. For example, The caverns near Carlsbad, New Mexico, are near the top of quite a large mountain. It makes me wonder how all that water got up there so it could run down through the mountain to create all of those magnificent sculptures over hundreds and even thousands of years.
But the view is quite spectacular from the front of the visitor's center.
The walk to the cave entrance is about a quarter mile from the visitor's center.
The account has it that Carlsbad Caverns was discovered by a cowboy named . . . not Carlsbad, but White - Jim White, who was out hunting cows and saw what he thought was smoke on the next rise. He rode on over only to discover that the darkness was bats, lots of bats, exiting the large (cavernous?) entrance to the cave.
On the walk down we spoke with a man and his wife who had lost a son in his youth whose name was Jason. The gentleman had a memorial to his son tattooed on his lower leg. We talked with them about it and about Jase and the similarities (a motorcycle accident).










You walk down to the entrance to the caverns - a long and winding trail 750 feet under the ground after quite a trek down to the cave entrance.








Ben and Jenn took us on this adventure in their car while Paul, Jess and Quentin took our car from Dallas back to Tucson and then drove Jess's car back to Mesa. They sit on the trail side which descends into the depths of cave-dom.





It is difficult, if not impossible to describe the immenseness of this cavern. I am surprised that the mountains continue to stand with such emptiness inside of them. They are certainly not what they seem from the outside.