Father of Six

The whole point of going to Carlsbad is to go to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We went on day two - Tuesday, March 27th, and toured the Natural Entrance and a portion of the Big Room. I took over 200 photographs and have decided not to post them here. I’m going to ask my brother how to do a Flickr (?) site and post them there. (That’s two things I need his help with now.)

After the two tours, we drove the 28 miles back to town, had lunch and took a nap. We then went to the Pecos River/Lake Beach Park near the downtown Carlsbad area, went for a walk and let Boomer play at the massive playground.

We headed back out to the Caverns at about 6:30pm so we could watch the “Bat Flight.” It was pretty fascinating. You sit in a smallish amphitheater and wait for the precise time for dusk to begin (7:24pm on this night.) At that moment the bats begin to make their exit from the Natural Entrance. The bats fly in a large circle around the Natural Entrance, and they rocket towards the evening sky. On this early spring night the park rangers estimated the number of bats at 3500 to 4000. That’s an awful lot of bats, and their ritual departure took over 20 minutes. They say the summer population is “a couple of hundred thousand!”

On the second day to the caverns, Wednesday, March 28th, we did the entire Big Room tour and got to see the things we skipped on the first day. I have to say that the caverns at Carlsbad National Park are probably the most incredible natural environment anywhere on (in?) earth. I’d also say that a person could never map the entire topography of the “Big Room” alone in a single lifetime. There is just so much going on inside that it is almost overwhelming.

Later in the afternoon/early evening of the 28th, we went back to the Pecos River/Lake Beach Park and rented a 4-person paddle boat. The five of us boarded, and Amanda and I took the first shift at the pedals. Our goal was to get to the footbridge upwind that was almost a mile away, and get there in under 30 minutes. We hammered away and rammed the bridge in 16. Tami and Becca brought us back at a much more leisurely pace - just before our hour time limit expired.

We headed home on Thursday, March 29th and arrived safe, but tired at about 5:30pm, in spite of the occasional snow showers.

Here are a few more photos to tide over the curious.

Amphitheater
Natural Entrance
Kids in the Caverns
Me and Tami