After the touristy walk in Tombstone, we headed for Carlsbad Caverns in southeastern New Mexico. That’s a drive of over 450 miles and we were starting in the afternoon, so we set a goal to stop for the night in Las Cruces, NM and complete the rest the following day. We made it to Las Cruces no problem and “camped” in the local Wal-Mart parking lot. For those not into RVing, there are 2 places that are easy to stop for a quick pit-stop when you’re not in a place to actually see it, but are just driving through: a rest stop and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart are very friendly to RVs, and allow RVs to stop overnight in their parking lots, and many even have their security patrol the area where RVers stop (usually in a far corner of the parking lot). It’s considered bad form to stay more than a night or to fully deploy your gear, but it really makes for a safe, handy place to stay when you just need to get some sleep before moving on. I’m sure Wal-Mart makes a decent amount on people who stop and go in to get a few things while they’re there. We usually buy something when we stop there—it’s the only time I really shop there. Anyway, this stop was uneventful, and we moved on in the morning.
Getting to Carlsbad routes through Texas if you look at the map, and we got a quick look at El Paso as we passed through. It’s clearly a city of religious, mostly Christian, people. I don’t know if they were gearing up for Easter or what, but there were lots of anti-abortion billboards and “praise Jesus” sorts of signs. Anyway, we weren’t planning on stopping in El Paso, and so continued on to Carlsbad Caverns.
Once in the vicinity of the Caverns, we stayed at Brantley Lake State Park, which was a nice, cheap state campground built on a reservoir. Many RVers (including a couple of other Airstreamers) were there, several with boats. It was a nice place to stay, and we enjoyed a nice night—grilled dinner, eating beer and watching the end of Arrested Development (great show that we just caught up with on DVD).
Carlsbad Caverns is a national park that is mostly underground. We did the “Big Room” tour, and when they say big, they mean it. It’s 75-stories underground, but is 25-stories high at its peak. Walking around the outside perimeter is a 1.3ish-mile walk. It was challenging to take pictures—I hadn’t brought my tripod because we were pressed for time and I knew I wouldn’t have time for setups. On-camera flash pics don’t look good because of the harsh shadows and the way the vast rooms swallow up light in wide shots. So I went available-light, and there wasn’t much. The NPS has lit the caverns interestingly, but it’s still hard to capture. I spent a lot of my time at ISO 6400 and 12500, as those were really the only options for an decent pictures at all.
Anyway, the caverns are a constant 56 degrees, year-round. It’s a little humid, but it felt kind of good when combined with the longish walk. I’d be interested in going back and doing it again and taking more of the walks. One of the things the Caverns are famous for is the nightly rush of bats flying out of one of the cavern mouths, heading out to eat insects. There are apparently over 300,000 of them that fly out all at once. Unfortunately for us the bats are still hibernating so it doesn’t start until later in the year, perhaps next month.
Next, on to Texas.