Carlsbad, New Mexico
Carlsbad Caverns & Guadalupe Mountains National Parks - February 2024
It's 2024 and this is the first trip to kick off the year 💕Carlsbad to the bone, here I come. We start off early with a 330 AM alarm, in the car by 4, pickup my long time trusty companion Kellie and get hyped as hell even at the crack of dawn. For context, we had been talking about doing this trip for almost a year. Two days. It took us a year to get there, don't wait to do things people. Just go.
Driving 18-ish hours total has never been so relaxing. The drive from Phoenix to Carlsbad is about 8.5 hours one way, and it's glorious. The dry cactus covered, dirt brown landscape of Arizona in early morning turns into a white, beautifully saturated palette of deep blues, white the color of ash, dark and light browns and greens. We bob and weave across the Texas and New Mexico borders a few times on this drive as it's not a straight line (which it really feels like it is) and you can see every color of maroon and tan in between. There are jagged, sawtooth type mountains in the distance right next to smooth mountains that look like a landside, nature is so cool. Others have waves and grooves in them that seem to be carved out. There's life everywhere, even if it seems barren. While cruising, we pass a truck that says "Nacho and Son", I thought it was funny. We also sang secret tunnel a few times :)
We talk about relationships of all sorts, friendships that have come and gone, hopes for the future and plans that have yet to be made. The open road gives you one of the best gifts I know of; the time and chance to think. Call on old memories you haven't pondered in a while and think about what you want out of life in a secure little box with four wheels. I promise your car won't tell anyone, and if you got a good one, neither will your co-pilot. I don't even remember what it was about, but I belly laughed so hard on the drive in. It's those moments you live for. "You got a fast car" applies to my little Cruze here too.
Rolling into the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, I missed a turn. So five miles of
one way road later, we get there. It wasn't clearly marked, not my fault insert shrug here. We roll up and the visitors center is HUGE. One of the biggest I've seen at a national park. It's got a great exhibit about the park like most parks feature with dioramas and examples of the wildlife and landscape. We confirm our reservations to head into the caverns, peruse the area and head down the pathways leading to the caves. One of the park rangers pulls group by group aside as folks are getting close to the entrance talking about standard protocol while in the caverns and we're good to go. The entrance to the caverns is not at first what you'd expect. There's a stone like amphitheater outside the front of the entrance and leading down is a winding path that takes you to the entrance of the dark tunnel. Going in it's pretty dark, and the smell of sulfur and something salty fills the air. As you head through, there's quite literally every texture imaginable in this place. Smooth, jagged, teeth like, spiked, flowing, it's every emotion you've ever had. The way the light shines on the structures is amazing. The caverns are gently lit so you can see the formations without a flashlight, but headlamps helped too in my experience.
Stalagmites rise from the ground and stalactites (that's right, they're different) hang like bats. They look like they'll break off at any moment, like they're hanging by a thread they're so thin. Exploring deeper into the caves, it's like the stones and statues are telling stories. The way that the spikes form a circular design with almost an open mouth, it's like there are model scale alters created by some other worldly beings here. The place is so detailed it's as if it was created by a higher being. Who knows, maybe. The entire cavern has this eerie, spooky like quality but it's beautiful in every way. Winding paths take you deeper into the caves until eventually you reach the Big Room. It's called this for a reason. Cause holy smokes. This was one of those "wow, my jaw is hanging open" moments. They're not kidding when they say the Big Room. I thought the entire cavern was the Big Room, but boy was I wrong. You can tell when you walk into quite a largely spread out pathway that you're now in the Big Room. We read a sign that said the caverns are over six football fields large, it just keeps going. Like the Energizer bunny, but I'm pretty sure he's never seen this place...
We originally booked a tour into the lower parts of the caverns with a group, but seeing as how we were going to make it late, we just decided to skip it. Funny enough, we silently came across the same group a few minutes later as it was beginning. They were in full on hard hat gear, kind of glad we skipped it this time... We spend a few hours down below exploring every pool of water and reading about the 513,000 year history of this place and find our way to the elevator (thank God for this, I don't think I would've found a way out without it). The trippy thing is the elevator goes right back into the visitor center, particularly the gift shop (of course, clever marketing CC, I see you.) I get my customary national park sticker for Frank and head out.
Something I hadn't realized in my research was just how small Carlsbad is as a city. I can see how the park is it's main attraction. The city of Carlsbad seems almost, tired in a way. It's definitely got an "old factory/warehouse town" kind of feel to it. There are many shops empty for rent and lease and the people just seem slumped over as if waiting for something to perk them up. I can't say I blame them. We mosey around town and don't have much luck finding much to do since it was about 4 PM at this time and things close before the hours listed on signs in small towns. Guess I'm not used to it. Can't take the city out of the girl and all that I suppose. That night, we head back to our Air BnB RV and freeze our asses off a bit, but it warms off eventually. All part of the experience. Kellie has the idea of picking up a game, so we hit a local Walmart and grab Guess Who and a deck of cards. I haven't played War in ages. The recliner chairs lining the RV make fart sounds as we move around and make me laugh harder.
Throughout our time at the RV, I think about any nomads and previous travelers that may have stayed here before. The next morning, we sleep in from our early rise the day before and I with no confidence it's going to work, warm up frozen breakfast sandwiches in the microwave. Rest assured, they turned to mush, so we went to IHOP. I'll have to try more local food next time I'm here.
We're ready to devour our rooty-tooty morning eats, and after this I can't come back to IHOP, it's just really gone downhill in every way. Sad face. Hearing Spanish spoken throughout the room while we eat is nice, I try to make out what everyone's saying and try not to eavesdrop into their lives too much. We head to one of Kellie's destinations at the Living Desert Preserve and Zoo. It was a great time. It's only $5 admission per person and it's a nonprofit, so you know I'm all about that life. It's an older building walking in and very quiet. It's early afternoon on a Saturday, o I wonder why it's so slow, maybe it's the winter. It was pretty cold at first. We pay at the counter and head left through a door that takes us outside onto the property. From the outside, you don't think zoo. I didn't really know that till we got there either. I'm not a zoo fan, but I liked this place a lot. Walking down the first few paths, there are some desert plants looking a little sad with the cold, but these amazing silver type stones made up for it. There was a small wall of them that were blinding in the light and beautifully coarse and rough. The minerals featured here were from all over the southwest, amazing. As you look out over the property, you can see the distance fades into light blues and grays, it's a great view as the facility is on top of one of the taller hills in town. As we walk through, there aren't many animals which brought my spirit down a bit, but just as I was about to lose hope, a sudden WHOOSH says "not today negativity!". The whooshing came from this beautiful American eagle who's enclosure we somehow missed. It's almost like he was saying, "Hey! Don't forget about me".
What a beauty. Going further and further into the property, we see the organization is HUGE and there are so many more animals than we originally thought there were including elk, one of which that walked right up to us, turtles, mountain lions, bears, wolves, prairie dogs and more. The facility only has animals that are not able to live in the wild, so that's why I was cool with them by the end of the day. Great work being done. Definitely check it out if you're heading to Carlsbad. Moving on throughout town, you can tell that local businesses mainly dominate this area. there are some chains here for the tourists but it's very much an industrial kind of town. Driving through town, we had about an hour from Carlsbad to Dell City where Guadalupe Mountains National Park is. As one of the smaller and less visited national parks, it was pretty quite and small, just like it's visitors center. I've been to my share of parks at this point, but this was one of my favorite visitors center. It was a quarter of the size of Carlsbad but so full of information. The natural level of diversity in the wildlife in this area is something I had no idea about. Tons of animals you'd never put in the same place are living in this area together, everything from foxes to roadrunners. Driving up you can see why this park is named for the mountains ,they're big and beautiful standing proud waiting for us mere mortals to bask in their glory. The mountains are tall and rounded with brown speckles and rows of green. I bow to you great mountains, you deserve it. Kellie wasn't feeling up to it so we didn't get to see much of the park, but at least I saw the mountains. I check the box with my sticker and we head out.
Driving back to Carlsbad, I'm dying to try a good local spot, so we stop at Anomaly, a sandwich spot with a whopping 4.9 rating on google. They earned it, it was dynamite. BOOM goes my tastebuds. I get a turkey, avocado and bacon sandwich with some sweet potato fries and it was awesome. Crispy, fluffy bread with the most amazing dressing, I don't know what it was, but I want a barrel of it. The windy has been pretty gusty all day and the sun begins to go down, so we head back to the RV. At one point or another, we watch Mulan when it happens to be the year of the dragon for Lunar New Year, and sing along the whole time. It's our last night here so we head to bed early, but not before Kellie gets a good gab session in with Justin via text conversation about things that will not be named.
Morning is here and we're already heading home. It was a quick trip, but I'm glad we took it. We head out just before 4 am to make the long drive home and load up the car in the cold. Getting to see the world come alive from dark to dawn to day is something beautiful. Dessert and mountain landscapes interchanging has to be one of my favorite things to see now.
The world is waking up with a pink and peach sky and the gold of the sun creeping over the horizon behind us as we drive west. Watercolors fill every space between my car and the air. The landscape looks like a brightly colored painting and we drive through not only different landscapes but climates including but not limited to, rain, a little snow and sun. My car tells me the weather fluctuates from 30 way up to 56 as we get more towards Arizona. There's snow on the ground with the dry desert and it's so interesting. I've taken part of this drive before going to White Sands with mom, but never seen it like this. There are small stand alone shops not attached to anything else and restaurants, I wonder how they're doing nowadays. You really get a total feel of "go west young man" with old box train cars and I think about how the west was settled. Beat up towns are scattered across the plains with old signs and I can't help but think about what these places used to look like. I do nothing but wish them well, as that's all I can do.
Thanks Carlsbad. It was fun.
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