Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands

It’s been a while since I posted, and our adventures continue. So strap yourselves in – it might be a bumpy ride.

In our desire to get the hell out of Texas, we drove from Kerrville to Carlsbad, New Mexico, in one day. Normally we don’t attempt this kind of distance – we try to keep our driving spells to around three hours. But we didn’t want to sleep at another rest stop.

Google Maps said the drive could be done in 5 hours 47 minutes. We did it in about 7. (We have to stop frequently for the dogs, as well as food and pee breaks for us.)

The drive itself wasn’t too bad. Things got a little weird north of Pecos, Texas, though. From Pecos to the Texas state line, apparently oil & gas companies are the only employers. It was nothing but dust, big rigs, and fracking wells. Very little green. The only wildlife I saw was roadkill. Hell, I didn’t even see vultures. It was like driving through a nightmare.

Luckily things improved once we crossed into New Mexico. Less fracking wells, at least. We decided to camp for the night at Brantley Lake State Park. Now, the irony of our campsite was not lost on me. We got out of Texas because there was no free camping. And we drove straight to New Mexico… and promptly paid for camping.

In our defense, Brantley Lake had showers, water, and electricity. So we were able to get clean, fill our water containers, and charge up all the electronics, as well as camp for the night, for $14.

It was pretty amazing, to sit outside our tent that night, and the only insects flying around were moths. It was so quiet that I could hear all the moisture getting sucked out of my hair and skin. I checked the weather, and the humidity was 11%.

Based on weather reports (continued temps in the 90s), we decided to hang out for a few days in nearby Lincoln National Forest. It was supposed to cool off by Friday (March 24th), so we figured that would be the day we went to Carlsbad Caverns.

We found a pretty cool site up in the hills, just down the road from a place called Sitting Bull Falls.

We didn’t actually use the fire ring – it was too small and grass was growing too close around it. The winds were picking up, and neither one of us wanted to be the ones to burn down Lincoln National Forest. So we strung up the Revel Gear lights.

In the morning I had a quick bite to eat and then went for a trail run with Bailey before it got too hot. Our campsite was really close to a few hiking trails – lucky us! After that, I put my chair in the shade and read. Those Harry Potter books are good! A quick read, though. I got through the first one in five days.

We planned to stay at this site for three days. You’d think I’d learn. Elvis, who had been doing so well sleeping in the back of the truck with Bailey, kinda lost it over the next two nights. The worst moment was after Michael had brought him up to the tent – and even that didn’t calm him down. He was panting, pacing. There was a point where things quieted down and for some reason I grabbed my headlamp to see if everything was okay. My light illuminated Elvis’s butt. He was trying to get out of the tent, and had managed to get his head and shoulders clear of the door (which was not zipped all the way closed).

So Thursday morning, we packed up. We didn’t get cell reception until we were pretty close to town but once we did I called both of the vets clinics in Carlsbad. Neither could help us. The town of Artesia sits 30 miles north of Carlsbad and I gave them a try. I also laid it on a little thick, as suggested by Michael, that we were traveling and our dog was very sick, was there any way they could work us in?

The Artesia vet clinic could take us as a walk-in after 2pm. Whew.

We left the vet clinic around 4-ish, with prescriptions for Elvis’s eye infection, for his possible stress colitis, and – I’m not even ashamed to admit it – doggie Valium.

It was actually kind of scary to see Elvis in such a panic. He’s old and I think he deserves a break. And, since his panic attacks were keeping us up at night, you know, I think we deserve a break as well. The vet gave us a very mild prescription. Just enough to take the edge off, he said, and not enough to turn him into a zombie.

Those 28 pills cost us just $8. Which is also kind of scary.

As we drove back into Carlsbad the wind picked up. A lot. I checked our weather app and it said there was a steady wind out of the west at 37mph, with gusts at over 50mph. And this wind would continue until the next afternoon.

Well, shit. This would turn out to be the first time we were afraid to even deploy the tent, much less fire up the stove to make dinner. Hell, the budget was a little blown from Elvis’s vet visit, so I don’t know why we didn’t just go all the way with dinner.

Oh wait – we were in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which, while a very nice town, was not exactly a culinary wonderland. We ended up at Denny’s.

I wish I knew who I was stealing this joke from, but the way it goes is that nobody goes to Denny’s, you end up at Denny’s. Such as it was with us, although I couldn’t really complain about the food. It was pretty okay, pretty filling, and it wasn’t too expensive.

After dinner we made the decision to camp at the Wal-Mart parking lot. We hoped there’s be a big wall we could park next to, you know, one that would block out that wind. No such luck. It was dark by this time anyway so we walked the dogs in a drainage field next door (trying not to get blown away), walked around the Carlsbad Wal-Mart for a bit, read in the cab for a bit, and then gave up and went to bed.

I figured Michael would have a hard time sleeping in the back with the dogs and all the stuff, considering how tall he is, so I offered to sleep back there. I’m not sure it was such a generous offer – I was nestled in with a down blanket (remember, all our bedding lives in the tent, so we had to improvise) and had two dogs to snuggle with. Well, one. Bailey thought my presence in the topper was the best thing ever but we gave Elvis that Valium right before bed. He was asleep before I could even get myself situated.

Michael, on the other hand, couldn’t recline the passenger seat all the way, in spite of me moving as much stuff as I could from behind said passenger seat. He ended up using a paper towel roll for a pillow and a Buff for an eye mask. He said he slept okay.

In the morning I got up and walked over to the Wal-Mart to use the bathroom and got us some lousy Subway coffee. I had a Lara bar and Michael got himself a Subway breakfast sandwich, I cursed my Paleo lifestyle making my life more difficult sometimes (like now) and off we set for Carlsbad Caverns.

I’ve been to Carlsbad Caverns before, and I was super excited for Michael to see it. I saw signs in the half-empty parking lot that I’ve never seen at a National Park before. They said leaving your pet in your car was prohibited, and to use the kennel.

Wait. There’s a kennel? If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have waited for the weather to turn and be stuck in all this wind. I would have come on that 92 degree day and we would have moved on.

Ah well. Turns out the kennel costs $10 per pet and it a little sad looking, but I dropped the dogs off. Elvis was voicing his displeasure at the situation before I could even reach the door. The kennel attendant reminded me that they close at 4:30.

There was no line of people waiting to get inside. Even better – the Park Ranger asked us if we wanted to go on the 2pm King’s Palace Tour.

Of course we did!

We walked in through the natural entrance, a series of steep switchbacks that descend into the mouth of the cave. I found myself joking that it was too bad we’d be taking the elevator out later, as the hike back up sounded like a pretty good workout.

I apologize for the lack of pictures here. I didn’t bring my camera partly because I didn’t want to carry around the extra weight all day, and partly because I wanted to look around and enjoy everything, instead of trying to photograph everything. Luckily, the NPS has its own photo gallery.

We had a great time walking through the Big Room and looking at all the formations. It’s almost indescribable. There are millions of formations there. While I got a little chilly waiting for the 2pm tour to start, I put on my hat and dealt with it. The cave has a constant temperature of 56 degrees, with 90% humidity so I knew that I’d warm up as soon as I started moving again.

The King’s Palace Tour was amazing and I recommend it highly. You get to see four chambers that are off-limits to the normal crowd, in addition to learning the history of Carlsbad Caverns.

The Ranger who gave the tour said something I found really profound. These caves, with their intricate formations of stalagmites, stalactites, curtains, columns, and other fantastic sights: they were never meant to be seen. By anyone. Normal conditions for a place like Carlsbad Caverns is total darkness. We were 800 feet underground, so there is no natural light. These millions of formations, well, they formed in the dark.

Kinda crazy.

My own anxiety began after the King’s Palace Tour ended at 3:30. Remember how the kennel said they closed at 4:30? Sure, an hour sounded like a lot of time… right up until the moment where we saw the huge line of people waiting to go to the surface in the elevator.

We were going to have to walk out. But when we got back to the start of that trail (it’s paved, but they still call it a trail), we found two orange traffic cones and two Park Rangers blocking the way. Access to that trail closed at 3:30. We explained our situation and the Rangers said something like, oh, that sounds like plenty of time. We were unconvinced. One of the Rangers said well, if you think you can make it to the surface in less than 45 minutes then go for it.

Michael said, I’ll run.

The Park Ranger said no running.

Michael nodded, walked briskly up the path until the first turn. And then broke into a run. I love that rule-breaking man.

I am not as fit as he is, so I did what I call the Power Walk, something I often do while trail running up hills. About halfway to the surface I realized I wasn’t cold anymore (in fact, I was sweating bullets), and that my joking wish had come true. Today’s workout was the Carlsbad Caverns hike out.

I made it to the Visitor’s Center in 30 minutes, and of course by that time Michael already had the dogs back at the truck. Damn but he’s speedy.

We were going to try and camp that night at Brantley Lake State Park again, but it was full so we found our own site on BLM land just up the road.

The next morning we headed west, passing through White Sands National Monument along the way. Talk about a place I’d love to explore more! The sunsets here must be magical.

 

 

We walked along a few of the dunes, I took some pictures, and then we had to keep moving, in order to make our goal: Aguirre Springs Recreation Area, where we camped for the night.

 

 

 

Pretty beautiful goal…