Carlsbad

We checked out of the hotel this morning and headed to the Carlsbad Caverns. We had been told that they were beautiful and we should try to get there if we could, so we rearranged our original travel plans to include Carlsbad and El Paso.

We were not disappointed.

The caves were absolutely amazing! We were some of the first visitors this morning, but we expected it would get much busier. Strangely, it was a pretty quiet day. Even a ranger told my sweetie it was uncommon to have so few visitors on a summer day.

That made it so we could take our time and see everything. Prima Donna and Scout played around in the visitor's center for a while and then they came down the elevator. The rest of us entered by the Natural Cave Entrance. By the time we got to the bottom of the trail, my legs were like jello, but we kept on moving.

We met Prima Donna in the lunchroom and then we did the trail in the big room. She had to turn back about half way since it was not accessible for scooters. Princess, Daylen, Crafty, Baby Doll, and Scout all went with her, but some of us wanted to see the entire big room. It was so worth the stiffness I have right now.

I tried to take some pictures for you, but most of the time the cave was too dark. My sweetie got some on his camera and maybe after we get home and things settle down, I can post some of them. But seriously, get on google images and look at  a few pictures of the caverns and then plan your next vacation here.

After we left the park, we drove for 3 hours to El Paso. Honestly, the drive was pretty boring and I slept part of the way. When we got to the hotel and checked in, we went swimming for about an hour and then we took the kids out to eat at Johnny Carino's for Italian food. We even got them to celebrate Daylen's birthday from a few days ago with free ice cream.

Then we decided to drive to the border. It would have been so easy to cross into Mexico. The problem is that we couldn't get back. Instead we just drove along for a few miles and looked at the fence and the crossing stations. Someday I'm going to get a passport so I can drive across the border just to say I did it. Maybe I will put Canada on my bucket list.