Day Thirty-Eight

By the time I’d woken up, it was after 9:00 am and most of the other campers had already left.
I opened the door to see where I was and was pleasantly surprised that I was camped at a very nice little campground next to some interesting looking hills. Most of the parking lot was filled with cars as this was a popular hiking area.


I paid my $8.00 for the night and pulled back out onto Hwy. 180/62 headed east to Carlsbad and the caverns.
The Caverns were only about 25 miles east of my campground so I was there well before noon. To get to them you had a very windy seven-mile drive up to the visitor centre from the highway.


The lady at the ticket booth explained that if I was in good shape I should go in through the “natural entrance” rather than take the elevator that takes you nearly 800 feet down into the cavern. The natural entrance has a small amphitheatre at the opening where each night you can sit and watch as literally millions of bats emerge from the cave to feed.







 I decided to take her advice and take the elevator back up to the surface once I was done. The cave was dark but well lit and there were handrails all along the trail which came in handy more than once because it was quite steep in places. As I descended into the cavern my knees really started to burn and I was glad that I’d taken a couple of ibuprofen tablets beforehand.



The cavern was massive and I could only imagine what had been involved in creating this path through the natural beauty of the cave. It was cooler than outside and very humid. 













I could have walked the entire path but elected to take a shortcut part way into the “Great Room”. I could easily have spent another couple of hours down there exploring the depths of the Great Room but I had seen enough and still had some miles to cover before my day was done.
I hadn't been on the road long when the skies opened up and I got a free car wash.



My goal today was to make it to Abilene, Texas after the cavern tour but only made it to Lamesa, TX. This is a tiny town that exists mainly to serve the oil and gas industry like a lot of the towns in West Texas.
They had a small RV park in town and I pulled in not wanting to have a repeat of last night.

I made some dinner, worked on my blog and hit the hay . Tomorrow I will drive to Fort Worth and spend a couple of days with my old Honda buddy, Duncan Williams.

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