July 28, 2008
We woke up real early this morning. By real early, I mean 6am. Surprisingly, both of us were up and about (as up and about you can be squished in a tiny ’96 Honda civic). We drove through the beautiful canyon to the national park’s tourist center. They didn’t open until 8:30, so we walked around a bit and watched the sunrise.
We hiked up to this small hill to write in our journals and pass the time away. For some reason Bea wore her flip flops, which wasn’t too comfortable walking through cactus spikes and sharp rocks. Poor Mango would get stuck behind a bunch of cacti and instead of turning around and finding a different route to me, he’d stick his front paws up on the cacti and perk his ears up. I had to then walk back and pick him up, pick out all the stickers and spines out of his paws, and continue the journey through the desert. Once we got all settled on our appropriate rocks we realized how horribly pesky the gnats were. They buzzed around our ears, arms, bodies, and ears. It was about 8:20am when we got back to the tourist center where we bought tickets, paid for a kennel, and rented an audio tour guide.
Dogs aren’t allowed into the caverns, and they’ve got these nice little kennels for $5 a day. The kennels were really a bunch of big and small crates in a side room of the tourist center. Mango stayed in there when we went down to the caverns. He wasn’t too happy.
On the way down to the caverns we stopped by and spoke with two people. The first was a guy dressed head to toe in long-sleeves and pants. He was spraying organic pesticides on invasive plant species. He told us that he lived on the national park and was a student nearby. The second person was a lady park ranger who convinced Bea to take a bite out of a cactus fruit. I took a picture of her hilarious face.
The descent down into the caverns was a steep, steep downhill climb. It progressively got colder, which was fine. Above ground it was a mean 115 degrees. The Carlsbad Caverns are incredible. We walked through the route laid out for tourists, oohing and ahhing the entire way through. I tried to snap some pictures, but I don’t hold the camera still enough so they turned out kind of sloppy. I highly recommend if anyone is in the southern New Mexico area to stop by and say hello to the awesome stalactites and stalagmites. It was incredible knowing that we were 750 feet underground and in what seemed to be a whole new world.
When we got back up to the surface we freed the Mango and set off for the journey to Phoenix. It was a long drive- probably along the lines of 10-12 hours. I really have no idea, though. We stopped by this Mexican restaurant and got some burritos. Dinner took place outside on the curb since they wouldn’t let Mango in. I had two cups of coffee so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel, and when we arrived in Phoenix I was on a horrible caffeine buzz. Never again.
Justin and his friend Abe were there to meet us, and we pretty much crashed immediately.
-S & M
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