Miles traveled: 270
Hours on Road: 5
States covered: 1 – New Mexico
Today started out with a bang, or should I say a crash? I was just exiting the shower area and entering the main part of our hotel room when I heard a loud thud. I asked what had just happened. The denials came flying toward me: nothing; it’s nothing; don’t worry; it’s fine. Then I saw the bed on a tilt, and the truth of the whole thing flashed before my eyes. They had discovered last night how much fun it is to jump high in the air and land prone on the bed. I made them stop the night before, saying it made too much noise, but that order of cessation obviously did not extend into the following day, so while I was out of the room, they commenced their destructive behavior.
As Cal lifted the bed, Parker placed the wooden leg back where it belonged, and we hightailed it outta there. I told them if we get charged for the break, they’re paying for it. We really are leaving devastation in our wake!!
We drove through a town called Encino; it looked like a ghost town. Every store and gas station was shut down. Oddly enough, there were two really nice houses in the center of town, one of which had a beautiful man-made pond surrounded by large rocks with a waterfall cascading down. Which one doesn’t fit in here, which one doesn’t belong??
After Encino we passed through Vaughn, also a wreck of a town. And then…nothing. Literally. For the next 70 miles, there was absolutely nothing. Oh, we saw a driveway or a road off to one side or the other, but they led so far into the horizon that one could never be sure what they led to. It was a good thing we started this day with a full tank of gas, because anyone who ran out of gas on this road was SOL. I had to pee so bad at one point, we just pulled over into the mouth of one of those mysterious roads and I squatted right there, next to the road. I just didn’t care.
As we got back in the van to leave the pee spot, an SUV came driving slowly along, going the WRONG WAY on the highway. She made a U-turn at our pee spot, and went on back the way she had come. You just don’t see things like that every day.
To be honest, somewhere between our pee spot and the 70 mile mark that I indicated as the first place we saw any sign of civilization there was a rest stop. It was tiny, but it was there. The road we were on had a speed limit of 75 mph, but we had to cross the other side of the road to get to the rest stop. They must have faith that the road never gets too busy. While there was nothing but flatness all around us, I could see some mountains way off to our right; they must have been 150 miles away. The rest stop had information on them. They were the Ogallala Mountains, which I was very excited to learn. Ogallala plays a big part in my favorite made-for-TV movie, “Lonesome Dove.” Now I can say I’ve seen the mountains.
Parker was concerned for all the cows we saw in the fields along the sides of the road. With no houses around, he felt that they’d been abandoned. At the 70 mile mark after Vaughn we saw the first house. It was a good-sized building, evidently a cow ranch, about two miles off the road. After that, we saw an occasional house, but never a gas station. We didn’t see a gas station until we reached Roswell. The first gas station I pulled into I could not get gas from because it was a Sam’s Club gas station. We didn’t have anything to fear, though, because Roswell is a huge town. I would say it’s on par with Torrington, but out in the middle of nowhere. Every building we passed had some reference to aliens.
The next town after Roswell was Artesia. The first thing that greets you in town is a large Adult Video store. Then there’s a waste transfer station, some huge, smelly industrial plant of some kind, a steel plant, and an industrial complex. A lovely place! It’s actually supposed to be an artistic center for the area; it’s on our list of places to visit that the KOA gave us.
Our KOA, with the Kabin, was about 40 miles before Carlsbad Caverns. We found out that we were too late to go on any of the tours at the Caverns. They all ended by 3:30, and we hadn’t arrived at the Kampground until 2:30. We decided we’d at least go later in the evening to see the bats take off, then get an early start in the morning to go on two of the self-guided tours. Our ride to Balmorhea, TX is only two and half hours tomorrow, and the Caverns won’t be far out of our way.
After we had a little dinner here (you order it from their kitchen and they deliver right to your kabin!!), we went to see the bats leave the bat cave at Carlsbad Caverns. It took us about 50 minutes to get there. Lee had us go a different route from the one the KOA people gave us. We think he’s starting to do drugs. Every now and then he has us go in funky directions, and then there was that issue of his being off by an hour for a couple of days. Anyway, he did end up getting us there. We arrived at the Visitors Center 10 minutes before it closed. Cal and Trey were able to get their shot glass and coin, respectively. To see the bats leave the cave, you head out to an area behind the visitor center. They said that the night before, the bats had left at around 8:05, so we had a little time to wait.
There’s a nice stone amphitheater built in front of and slightly above the cave, so you get a good view. The cave mouth opening is on one side of the giant hole over which the amphitheater sits. The woman ranger in charge of the evening gave some facts about the area and about bats in general, and she answered questions. She also informed everyone that they should be as quiet as possible when the bats begin to leave so they do not decide to go back into the cave and wait until it gets quiet. She also said there are no photos allowed (the noise and the lights disturb the bats, and there’s a more than $100 fine for taking photos during the exit), and all cells phones should be turned off. Parker didn’t like her because she didn’t seem to really know enough about her topic. I have to agree with him.
We learned that there are three species of bats that exit the cave we were sitting in front of, though there are 16 species of bats within all the Carlsbad Caverns. These bats are not mosquito eaters, like we all presumed. They eat moths, beetles, and June bugs. Though the mothers tend to their babies’ needs, and can distinguish their own baby from the thousands of others, they don’t actually stay with their babies at sleeping time. The males are in one section, the females in another, and the babies in another. When they exit the cave, they cannot just fly straight out. They need to “warm up” and build up momentum before they can take off up through the depression that the cave sits within. They exit the mouth of the cave swarming below the amphitheater in a counter clockwise direction, and as momentum builds, groups begin to peel off and head out into the night sky. A microphone system has been installed at the mouth of the cave so the people up top can hear when the bats begin to come out of the cave. Once that noise is heard, everyone is expected to be silent, which we were, except for the squeaky fart that sneaked out of someone very near me. All my boys deny it was them.
I got so excited when I heard the whooshing sound from the speaker. Maybe five minutes after the first sound, I could see a bat every now and then poking up over the edge of the amphitheater wall, and it was always heading in a counter-clockwise direction, just like she said it would. In the blink of an eye, there were suddenly thousands of them, spinning like a small tornado, round and round, then a few would break off and head out; in another blink of an eye, the exodus began. The sound of the thousands of bats flying in the circle and the thousands more taking off into the night sky sounded like a slight breeze blowing through the trees. They just kept coming and coming, and trailing off into the night, like a vaguely visible comet. For anyone who has seen “The Green Mile,” they reminded me of the scene where John Coffey blows the “badness” out of his mouth; they were that thickly grouped. They began their exit at 8 p.m., and when we left at 8:30, the exodus had not slowed in the least. The ranger had said that it could go on for up to three hours; that’s how deep into the cave they roost. I asked her about the sweet smell that came out when their exit began. She said it was them, though I couldn’t ascertain from what she said whether it was their urine or their guano odor, but whatever it was, I found it rather pleasing, while Parker found it absolutely gross. But what does he know? He hates cilantro.
The flight was absolutely amazing! There had to be hundreds of thousands, with more to go. I originally said there were millions of them, but Parker said that was a gross overestimation. I guess we got there on a good night with a quiet enough crowd. I’m excited about returning tomorrow to walk through that same cave.
For (very few) corresponding photos, go to:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1941376027/a=2740108027_2740108027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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