Carlsbad Caverns

Beautiful Ocotilla Cactus in bloom everywhere!

Prickly Pear Cactus blossoms

Entering Carlsbad Caverns by the natural entrance,

a 1 hour hike to the Big Room just like the first explorers!

The Whale's Mouth

Cave Popcorn

Lots of great cave formations

Fairyland

The Giants

Cave Pond

Hi everybody! Today we went to Carlsbad Caverns. It was amazing! We couldn't take a picture of the national park sign because of road constrction, which is something we've found at a lot of the parks we've visited so far. We began our day at the visitor's center and getting our information audio guides. They were like big cell phones that told us all about certain places along the path. We started our hike into Carlsbad Caverns by using the natral entrance instead of the elevator. It took us about 1 hour to walk down 850 feet into the cave, where most people start their hikes by riding down in the elevator. Carlsbad is really awesome because it has such huge rooms filled with cool decorations. There were big formations and small formations, there were formations that looked like animals, some that looked like villages, large ones that looked like giants walking around, there were cave ponds and lots of color in the formations. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to walk around the Big Room and then we took the elevator back to the visitor's center. Later on at dusk, we went back to the natural entrance to hear a ranger talk about the Mexican short-tailed bats that live in the cave and to watch them come out. I learned a lot about the bats, like that they aren't really blind and that they don't drink blood. When they finally came out of the natural cave entrance, they first came out a little at a time, then there were big bunches that came out. We don't have any pictures of this because we were not allowed to have cameras or cell phones because it messes up with the bat's ecolocation. It was neat to see so many came out and be so close to them. My dad thinks that a couple thousand flew out, which is a lot less then at the end of the summer when they've counted over 200,000! We will need to go back to see that! Well, we are on to visit friends and then we will be going to the Great Sand Dunes NP. Keep checking back!

*Caitlin*