Grand Canyon Vacation - Day 7 (Carlsbad Caverns)

Day 7 - Our only planned stop today was at Carlsbad Caverns. We knew that the majority of our day would be spent in the van - driving. From our hotel in Lordsburg, NM to Carlsbad National Park, it was a 4.5 hour drive. 

Leaving the hotel around 7:30, we were also in search of a Walmart to grab a few supplies for our picnic lunch that we were planning to have at the park. 

We made a pit stop at the Scenic Overlook Rest Area near Las Cruces, NM. It was a beautiful rest area with lots of flowers and a nice overlook of the surrounding area. While us girls used the restroom, Matt walked to see the roadrunner sculpture. 

This was as close as Matt got to the roadrunner sculpture, unfortunately. As I was making notes (on my itinerary) about our stops for the day, I googled the sculpture and found out that it is made from all recycled items! I've included two close up pictures from Google to show you some of the recycled items (especially shoes). I told Matt and the kids and we were all bummed that we didn't take time to walk up and see it up close. 

We were able to find a Walmart in El Paso, TX, where we purchased bread and some bottled water. 

While driving through El Paso, we admired these "grape balls" on Airway Blvd. We actually pulled off the main road so that we could get better pictures of them. Very interesting!

One more quick stop as we headed out of El Paso - a restroom stop at a gas station where Will surprised the girls with slurpees for everyone!

We drove Hwy 62 northeast out of El Paso - all the way to Carlsbad National Park. What a beautiful drive, especially as we got closer to the Guadalupe Mountains! 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park has been on our "to visit" list for quite a few years. We had planned to visit in 2015, but ended up heading home a different route on that trip. There's no way around it, we would need a full day to visit Carlsbad (travel time included). Initially (2015 and again this trip), we really wanted to include a stop in Roswell to see all of the alien stuff (for the novelty of it). That stop added 2 more hours of drive time. We decided that we just couldn't do that on this trip and scratched it from our itinerary.

We arrived at Carlsbad around 12:30 - giving us plenty of time to eat our lunch (picnic). Our reservations were for 1:30 - the latest time slot available. After lunch, we headed into the visitor's center to get checked in for the tour of the caverns. 

We were told, by the park ranger, that it would take us 45 minutes to go all the way down to the Big Room. We can't remember how many switchbacks, but we thought he said 60ish?! The trail descends 750 feet below the surface.

There were swallows flying in and out of the open cave - it was neat to see them, but they were intimidating!

Maddie & Alex headed down first, followed by Kaitee and Matt. Will & I brought up the rear. 

Will & I ended up lagging pretty far behind the rest of the family. Will was dealing with pain in one of his toes so we took our time walking (the steep walkway was really hard for him to walk on). I also stopped and took a bunch of pictures along the way.

Once we got to the entrance to the Big Room, we found the other 4, waiting for us. We headed to the restrooms before walking the Big Room. This area was super cool! It included the Underground Lunchroom (built in 1928), restrooms, exhibits, souvenir stand and elevators. 

We headed back into the Big Room to finish our tour. The Big Room is 1.25 miles long and takes approx 1.5 hours to walk through. 

For most of the time in the Big Room, the kids walked ahead of Matt & I (we lagged behind, taking lots of pictures). At some point, we realized that we were essentially by ourselves in the cavern. There were two other couples that we leaped frogged, but we were pretty much by ourselves. We really enjoyed the time in the Big Room - we shared lots of laughs. 

I (Matt) loved the railings. Approx. three miles of curved rail (roughly 1.5 miles on both sides of the path), nothing was straight. A marvel of engineering, and made for great visuals as well.

The caverns were stunning! Honestly, the Big Room seemed unreal - like it was man made. Our cameras couldn't truly capture the beauty and uniqueness of it all, but we tried (lots and lots of pictures taken!)

We ended up being the last group out of the caverns (a ranger was trailing us, so we knew that there was no one else behind us, ha!). We made our way to the elevators and traveled up to the visitor center. After a quick tour through the gift shop (they were closing the visitor center for the day), we headed to the van. 

We entered the caverns at 1:45 and exited the visitor center at 5:00. 

Another ranger followed us out of the visitor center to lower the flag. We truly shut the place down! 

Selfie from the parking lot...

On the way out of the park, we stopped at this overlook which was a great view of the valley and switchback on the Carlsbad Caverns Highway. Sadly, just a month later, this area was hit with a devastating flash flood (see second picture, borrowed from the internet). The flood completely wiped out parts of the road at the switchback.

We drove out of the park and headed towards our hotel for the night - Fort Stockton, TX (2.5 hours, plus losing an hour from Mountain to Central Time). Unfortunately, the road that we drove (Hwy 285) had MAJOR road construction. Every few miles, we would have to stop and wait our turn as the road was down to one lane. It was BRUTAL! By the time it happened the third or fourth time, we could only laugh...which we did. 

We stopped in Pecos for a quick dinner and then checked in to the hotel around 10pm. Unfortunately, there was no way around the long day of driving without adding another day to our trip. It was a very tiring day, but we loved Carlsbad Caverns! 

Favorites from Day 7 -

Matt - Caverns (Self-Guided, not busy especially at the end)

Becki - Caverns (photos with the kids, kids having fun together)

Kaitee - Enjoyed time with Alex & Maddie (walking ahead of the rest of us)

Alex - Last 1/2 of the Caverns (no one else around)
Will - Caverns (Cool to see)

Maddie - Caverns, Slushie from Will