We've made it to the West! And are rewarded with a lot of flat desert landscapes...
It looks like he's trying to blend in like the stick. He almost has it down.
Our main destination in New Mexico was to visit Carlsbad Caverns, so prepare for a LOT of pictures!! We got there right before our tour of King's Cavern (for that part you have to have a tour because it's not open to self tours due to vandalism), so we didn't take the time to walk down the cave, but instead took the elevator down. Kind of cheating, I know, but we still walked around for about 4 hours.
Some pictures are more clear than others, due to the fact that we are in a cave, and using our phone's cameras.
Below is the open room that is called the King's Palace. The story behind the discovery and exploration of this place is pretty interesting. It's so huge that they are still discovering new passages and rooms. We explored for 4 hours and there were still a lot of places we could have toured that we didn't get to.
According to the tour guide, the first picture of this room was taken using several flares to light it up, and over an hour to take the picture. After the picture was developed and started circulating is when people finally started to want to come down and see what was in the cave.
These little stalactites are about 100 years old, newly formed after a passage was opened up a little more.
StalaCTites hang Tightly to the Ceiling,
StalaGMites you Might trip over them on the Ground,
and well, columns look like columns because they connect, drapes look like drapes, popcorn looks like popcorn all over the floor and walls and soda straws, well, they look like soda straws. :)
The Queen's Chamber gets it's name from all of the lovely drapes hanging around.
I thought this bashful elephant was cute. See if you can spot it below!
Make sure you notice the reflection in the clear water.
It feels like another world doesn't it!?
This is the natural entrance to the cave if you don't cheat and use the elevator. The stadium seats are there for everyone who comes and watches the bats when they fly out of the cave in the evening. You can see it's some serious zigzag trails to go down and up.
And now we leave the exciting part of New Mexico... and after driving through a lot of empty looking area, we reach the great town of Roswell.
Apparently their big claim to fame, and really the biggest thing going for them is their number of UFO sightings. Every store we passed, be it local or a chain, had some reference to aliens.
And then a whole lot more open, flat space before we entered Albuquerque.
Do you think he's ready for bed?!
And finally, as we leave New Mexico, we start to get a little change of scenery.
No comments:
Post a Comment