Carlsbad Caverns National Park

There's a website that we use called RVillage which allows you to "check-in" at a campground and see who's near you. While we were still staying at Monahans in Texas, I saw another family we met at the rally in February was in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We arranged to meet up at Carlsbad Caverns to tour it together.

Since my ankle was still hurting, Journey and I opted to "cheat" and take the elevator down while the rest of our group hiked down the Natural Entrance trail. While waiting for them, Journey and I checked out the visitor center. I had been wavering on my decision to skip the first part of the hike until I saw this model of the caverns. Once I saw the crazy switchbacks, I KNEW I made the right decision!

The building on top is the Visitor Center. The tube running from that into the cave is the elevator, 

descending 800 ft down. The Big Room is the area from the elevator to the front of this photo. 

I gave Journey a Spanish lesson while waiting at the bottom of the cave, so when they appeared, she greeted Daddy with, "Hola Papa!" We hiked the Big Room trail thru the cave admiring the formations and pure size of the cave. We have been in a number of caves, but this is by far the largest.

An estimated 400,000 bats live here from late May thru October. The sight of all of them leaving the cave at dusk is so amazing that there is an amphitheater set up for guests to experience it. Unfortunately we were there one week too early, so many of the bats had not migrated back from Mexico just yet.

No idea what these buildings are across from the caverns entrance, but they look cool!

After our hike we had planned on grabbing dinner together. Finding a restaurant without driving farther north into town was a challenge. We already had a two hour drive home so we didn't want to add to that. We both searched online and GPS for our options. We found a few places that said they were only a few miles away however the names seemed, well, inappropriate, "The Velvet Garter" for one. We were growing hungry and desperate, so we just started driving. There was only one place nearby. The sign out front said "White's City Restaurant" but inside it had the other names posted that we had seen online. Apparently it goes by many names, and it's much more than a restaurant. There's this little three-seater bar, a video arcade room and indoor mini golf! We joked that each part probably goes by its own name online to make it seem like there's more going on here.

Meeting up with another Fulltime Family gave us the opportunity to pass Rambler on to travel with them for awhile. He's the group mascot and jumps from family to family to experience adventures around the US. Journey was heartbroken to give him up, but when she woke the next morning, there was a new dog in her bed, Rambler's puppy.

Before we left, we made plans to meet up in White Sands as we were passing thru a few days later.