Started the day in the park’s shower facility. The showers are quite nice with ample hot water and gimp stalls with both overhead and hand-held water nozzles. The clear weather of yesterday is gone; overcast skies.
Peg & I drove the 35 miles or so to Carlsbad Caverns so we could give it a sniff. We were not disappointed. As a matter of fact, this is a destination for the bucket list.
In the visitor center we found that since we bought the federal access pass (way back in Gold Beach in July 2014) we again got to go in w/o charge. It is only $10 a head (for entry over three days) which we discovered is about one of the best ways to spend money, bar none.
The caverns are truly magnificent. We started the excursion with a 750′ ride down a shaft in a freight elevator that moves along at a nice clip. I think the ride down takes less than 2 minutes. There is an airlock door system to the elevator lobby and once passing that one emerges through to an underground snack bar, small gift shop and restrooms in a side tunnel.
Peg & I took off from this subterranean lobby on a trail of the Big Room. The Big Room is pretty big – the loop pathway (Portland Cement Concrete paved with stainless steel handrail both sides) is a bit more than a mile back to the elevators. The cavern trail winds along the edge of the cave offering lots of different views of everything. The lighting installed is gorgeous although you can see some panels and wiring installed on the surface throughout the cave. The conductors on the ground and the panels do not interfere with the spectacular views in this wonderful place.
I cannot adequately express my wonder at this place so I won’t try. I could go into the Caverns a lot and still be happy. I tried to take pictures but I do not know if they will turn out. Exposure times were long and I stupidly did not bother to carry a tripod. A flash is basically useless in the caverns because the spaces are truly enormous and items close to the lens are overexposed to the point of arc welding.
Once we finished up our circuit of the Big Room (which took us 3.5 hours) we re-boarded the freight elevator for the trip up. The elevator cars do just as well going up; less than a two minute ride to re-emerge at the surface. Peg snagged a few postcards in the gift shop and we departed the building. It was quite a bit colder than we we went in when we emerged. Glad we bought propane yesterday because it is going to be cold tonight. We speculate we will lay low tomorrow because the weather report says snow’s coming tonight.