Carlsbad Caverns

We were told that before we moved away, we had to see the Carlsbad Caverns. This past weekend was Aaron's last weekend here in Las Cruces with us, so we decided that Saturday was the day to go. It was a 3 hour drive. We went all the way to Carlsbad (a little past the actual caverns) due to some missing signage, but that was okay, we needed somewhere to eat lunch. We ended up at the Caverns at 2:00pm. There are two ways to enter the big main cave - take an elevator that descends the height of a 75 story building or go through the natural entrance. That way was a 1.25 mile hike down a very steep path. We figured if we did that with all the kids, they would be done at that point and wouldn't want to see the big room, which has the most famous and interesting features. After we took the elevator down - which went down 750 feet in less than one minute - I got out my nice big camera only to realize that the batteries were dead. I had brought along extra batteries, but they were in the car. Rachel had our old camera with her, so that's what I had to take pictures with. Some of the pictures turned out great, and others you can't see very much. They had lighting down in the cave, but it was still pretty dim. It was very interesting to see all of the formations.




Can you tell how thrilled they are about getting their picture taken?



Here's the slideshow. A lot of the pictures are dark and everything looked really amazing in person - the pictures don't really do it justice.


I'm still trying to decide if it was worth the long drive, but I'm glad that we went. Hmmmm, what else do we need to see before we leave?