On Thursday, October 4th, we headed towards Carlsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico. On the way we stopped at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. We toured the grounds and saw many native desert plants and animals. I like having the opportunity to see wild animals up close, but it never fails to make me sad to see them confined to cages . . . All except the huge rattlesnake shaking his tail and separated from my face by a piece of glass. That was a good place for him!
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| Mountain Lion |
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| Bobcat |
Carlsbad Caverns was very impressive. The ranger-led tour was sold out so we did the self-guided tour of the "Big Room" which was an enormous, dimly lit cave filled with incredible, otherworldly shapes and images. We spent about an hour and a half on this one-mile walk which took us around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave. We had a handheld audio device that gave us information at 29 stopping points within the cave. It was like having a "ranger in a box" and was very interesting.
At dusk visitors can watch thousands of Mexican Free-tailed bats exit the cave enmass for their night feeding. It would have been awesome to stay and see that, but we had to get to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas and find a campsite before dark.
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