A
two mile hike underground- October 25
We are driving on the back roads of Texas and as we pass
cemeteries, big oak trees, big southern brick homes, and big open fields with
wildlife ranging from cows to horse to big horn sheep we are realizing that
they like big here. Big trucks and big tractors, big oil pumps and big oil
drills, everything is big. I haven’t seen to many locals yet but I feel like
they would personify the big mentality. But as we are driving past all of this
at our usual fifty to fifty-five miles an hour, we are recounting the day we had
yesterday. Incredible sights that you definitely can’t see every day. Some
might never even see a picture of them let alone experience them first hand. Than again I guess we can say that about most
of the things we will see this trip. We are the lucky ones.
We got into the Carlsbad around 1-2 am after a lot more of a
mountain climb than we anticipated. Going through El Paso and up the Guadalupe
mountains proved to be a little bit of a challenge for our baby girl Destiny.
With the wind against us, we had to be pushing 25 or 30 miles per hour at
times. Those 4 cylinders were working as hard as they possibly could angrily
and vocally cursing the unnatural weight we have added since we have purchased
her. What can I say she has a big ol’ booty. When we reached the top we were surprised to
see a straight road on top of this huge plateau of a mountain for miles and
miles. We traveled about 30-40 min. before we saw any signs of life other than
a campsite here and a hiking trail there. We were hoping to stay the night
close to the treasure trove of what your brain can only comprehend as anomalies
that is the Carlsbad Caverns but $38 bucks for half a night is just not in the
cards. Onward we go into the pitch black Wal-Mart bound for the second night in
a row. Wal-Mart parking lot residing can
have its challenges. For one the parking lot, though it appears level, is
rarely level. This is something you don’t really realize until you are getting
and bed. Gravity and blood soon let you know if you are level. The noise level
differs depending what town you are in and this particular one was not too bad
at all. A big plus of staying in our free spot sponsored by Wal-Mart is we can run our generator whenever and no
one is gonna bother us. When we woke up that morning we began our morning
ritual of trying to find some dry ice. Well it turns out little towns are not
huge into carrying dry ice. We were able to find a shop in town called Bond Ice
Co. that only sells ice. How do people survive off of only selling frozen
water? $2.00 was all it cost to buy a 10lb. block of ice that will work as a substitute
for our dry ice for our recently converted ice box.
The Caverns are just straight up mind blowing. It sounds
pretty cliche but it is truly difficult to wrap your brain around the fact that
this was all created over thousands and thousands of years just from water acid
and stone. All the strange shapes and colors would never be seen by human eyes
if it weren’t for light. It’s almost like these stalactites and stalagmites were
created in secrecy not intended for human eyes until they were done marinating
and we had discovered how to take light with us. That wasn’t documented until
1898. I am sure there were a few wanders before that but really? It sat there
that long not being enjoyed by anyone’s eyeballs? Crazy. The things in this cave are hard to find the
words to describe because I just haven’t seen anything quite like it other than
in movies and once when I was a kid.
We were able to get into the cave for free with our "America the beautiful" pass. It was $80 for a whole year and it allows you to enter into any National Park, National Forrest, or National Reserve for free and has other perks like getting into the cave without paying the $6 fee. We walked through the natural entrance of the cave which was one mile, through switchbacks, deep into the center of the earth. Once we got to the Big Cave we hike around another mile loop. This room was huge and were 775 feet underground. It's like were transported to another planet. Just how BIG is the Big Room? The Atlas of Great Caves of the World by Courbon, Chabert, Bosted & Lindsley published in 1989 states that the floor area of the Big Room in Carlsbad Cavern is 33,210 square meters. You roughly get that 6.2 football fields would fit into the Big Room. In acres, one acre is equal to 4,840 sq. yards or 43,560 sq. feet. Divide 43,560 sq. ft into 357,480 sq. ft. and we find that the Big Room is 8.2 acres in size (more or less). Maybe that will help you imagine just how incredible this place was! The craziest part is there was still a lower cave that we did not explore and below that was more caves and tunnels that were yet to be studied! We had blast just exploring and questioning and wondering.
BARE WITH THE PICTURES, WE ARE CURRENTLY WITHOUT A CAMERA SO WE HAD TO USE OUR I PHONE!
After spending a good two and half hours down there we rode the elevator all the way up to the top and drove out to the picnic area on the edge of the plateau we were on. It was beautiful and peaceful and crazy knowing that huge cave was just underneath us. Who would have guessed? After we finished up eating and soaking in the sun and the breeze we loaded up headed for a our long drive out to Junction, Texas. We found an awesome free place to stay on this website http://freecampsites.net/schreiner-city-park/. It was a little creepy pulling in there at one in the morning, with towering oak tree, gusty winds, and weird shadows, but we found a level spot and ate some food anyway. We tried to get our hot spot working to put up some blogs but anything with that has anything to do with technology has been extremely frustrating! I got into bed and Jordan talked with Ian for a while. It started to rain in the middle of the night and I panicked cause we haven't tested our new seals. Thankfully Jordan did an amazing job and we had no leaks!
Goodnight for now!
