After some serious negotiating about who drew the short straw and had to shower first (Lester lost), we quickly packed up and headed to Roswell, NM. It is a straight shot via a four lane divided highway through desert pastureland from Santa Fe to Roswell. Sadly, there was nothing to document. Lester did work very hard on evening up the score in the cow game. And, I must begrudgingly admit that perhaps he has taken the lead.
Upon our arrival in Roswell, we were greeted by aliens. They are everywhere: on lamp posts, on fences, on credit union signs. "The Roswell Incident" has spawned an industry.
We skipped breakfast this morning so our first course of action was lunch. We ate at Big D's Downtown Dive. I had the best burger I've had in a long, long time. And, it might just hold me until breakfast tomorrow.
Following lunch we toured (straight face here) The International UFO and Research Museum. Kind of a highfalutin title for a converted movie theater filled with reproductions and affidavits from the son of the cousin of the guy who.... But it provided some good clean fun and impressive photo ops.
We had planned to visit Alamogordo, home of the first atomic bomb test site, but decided in the interest of time and a better offer in Carlsbad to skip it. It turns out that we made the correct decision! Carlsbad Caverns National Park was phenomenal. Although ranger guided tours are available we arrived too late in the day and took a self-guided tour instead. The largest, main cavern is absurdly big, some might say ginormous. As I recall, about 600,000 square feet (a typical Home Depot is about 100,000 square feet) and about 750 feet below ground. We have been in caves before but this one is remarkable in size and scope. This cave system is largely inactive, about 95% of the structures are dry, not glistening with new-fallen, dripping water. However, that didn't detract from the experience. It does mean that the cave will be largely stagnant in terms of growth for many generations.
When you enter the cave on the so-called natural path you arrive in the portion of the cave in which the bats have taken up residence. These Brazilian free tailed bats, migrate from Mexico each spring and stay until fall. They have been summering in Carlsbad for so long that there is something along the order of 40 feet of bat guano on the floor under their roost. The stench was quite unpleasant but once we passed below them the smell dissipated, leaving us with an amazing 2 and a half mile trek around the cave.
There are many bats that sleep in the cave during the day. At dusk they do what bats do, wake up and go out to find something to eat. They do this en masse. We went back to the cave entrance at dusk to watch the mass exodus. The park is pretty strict about the bat viewing as it is called. No cell phones or cameras or frankly anything that can make noise. So, no pictures but the bats come out of the main entrance, circle counter clockwise once or twice and and fly off to the south. This process took about 10 minutes. 10 minutes of bats flying out in a large, black, swarm. There must have been tens or hundreds of thousands of bats exiting the cave all at once. It was a sight to behold. It was a smell to behold as well, as the rush of bats from the cave drew out the awful smell of the guano from the cave.
FUN FACT: The bats are about the size of your thumb with a wing span of about 11 inches, weigh about the same as three nickels and they eat about 50% of their body weight in bugs every night.
Once the bats had dissipated, we headed to our hotel to blog and complete some paperwork. Tomorrow we head further east and add yet another state...Texas! San Antonio, specifically, to bask in the hospitality of the McGs.
PS: We meant to add this picture yesterday. While we were at the concert on the plaza in Santa Fe, we saw teenage Lester's doppelganger. Kinda awesome, huh?
And we busted through the 6000 mile mark today on the way back to the hotel.
A&L
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