Sunday, March 9 -Carlsbad Caverns

After a good nights rest at the Ridgeway Inn we drove the 7 miles to the Carlsbad Caverns NP. We were unable to make reservations for the one remaining open tour as the ticket office was closed yesterday when we got there. We recently found out that it is spring break so everything is pretty busy. We secured tickets for the 2 o'clock King's Palace tour and then rode the elevator the 800 Ft to the bottom of the cave. We were among the first down so it was really nice to walk along the Big Room trail at such a leisurely pace. After our walk we rode back to the top, had lunch at the cafe and drove a 10 mile scenic loop near the caverns. We decided the scenic loop was not especially scenic as it looked just like all the desert scenery that we have seen from Big Bend to the Guadalupe Mountains. Desert is desert and it is a dry end of winter so scenery is hard to see.

Outside the natural entrance, unfortunately the bats have not migrated back tot the caverns yet

Today we are going to visit the Living Desert Zoo & State Park, Artesia and Roswell in New Mexico.