So after returning back into the US safely we started our trek east. First on the list was Carlsbad Caverns, a cave system I have wanted to see ever since they were featured on the Planet Earth series of documentaries (if you haven't seen them yet make sure you put that at the top of your to do list, they are incredible). 900 miles seperate San Diego from Carlsbad so we had quite a journey on our hands. It was Monday evening at this stage and we had planned to go to the caves on Wednesday so we needed to bash through a good few miles.
The first few on the I-10 were like most of what we had done before but slowly the terrain started to rise in front of us and the vegetation became more sparse. Soon we were climbing and reached over 4000 feet elevation. We began to see Joshua Trees, a very exclusive tree that only grows between altitudes of 2,600 and 4,300 feet. Very soon the vegetation was being replaced
with rocks, some deep red in colour. The interstate cut through some of the mountains and before we knew it we were on the other side and we were greeted by an amazing sight - desert as far as the eye could see and the highway cutting straight through it.
Since it had been a week sice the last one and we had 90 miles to drive we decided to book into an RV park the following day. Which meant we needed to put a big hole in the 900 odd mile trip this evening. So we rolled down the windows, turned up the music and stuck Ita into cruise control. Even though it was 6 in the evening it was still 100 degrees in the desert (around 38 in real temperature). As the miles ticked away so did most remnants of civilisation - it was us, the truckers and the odd petrol station just off the interstate. We were treated to an amazing sunset in our mirrors as we continued east into the desert. What happened next was even more spectacular - a moon rise. About half an hour into darkness (and it gets really dark out in the desert) Emer pointed to the right slightly and asked if that was the moon. Instead of the usual full round white moon, there was a bright yellow eliptical moon which slowly transformed to the usual round white one over the course of a couple of hours as it rose from the horizon. And the miles ticked by. Along the interstate there was a police checkpoint which was manned by border patrol. A couple of questions, a check of our passports and visas and we were on our merry way
into the Arizona night. And the miles ticked by. Deep into Arizona the moon was creating silhouettes of the giant pitchfork cactii in the desert either side of the road. And the miles ticked by. On our trust worthy sat nav we entered rest areas along the route and chose one. And the miles ticked by. Around 500 miles from San Diego we rested our weary eyes (Emer rested
hers about half an hour before the rest area (After I had driven a couple of 100 miles myself!) in preperation for the remainder of the journey.
We were woken by the alarm at 8am and hit the road again. The cactii were gone, replaced with the odd bush, some thick tufts of grass and alot of sand. The I-10 continued into New Mexico (we lost an hour here with the change of time zone - this will be explained later) and on into Texas where it hugged the Mexican border. Another border patrol checkpoint so. This time we
showed our visas and were requested to exit the vehicle and have a seat while a sniffer dog gave it the once over. No drugs or Mexicans were found on board so we headed on our merry (and hot) ways again. We bid farewell to the I-10 at El Paso and joined the Texan highway network. I thought the interstate was through the wilderness but it was nothing to the Texan highways. The 2 lane highway cut straight through the desert, for stretches of up to 40 miles at a time. Gas got pretty low at one stage, a single gas pump in the middle of nowhere providing relief. This highway continued through Texas and brought us over the Guadalupe mountains in the north of the state. About an hour later we were in Carlsbad, unfortunately the RV park was another half an hour the other side. We eventually arrived after 5pm, 24 hours after leaving San Diego. We did a few things but I was so wrecked from the heat and the drive that I was in bed by 9. I barely even remember putting my head on the pillow.
The follwoing day brought what I had been looking forward to for a long time, Carlsbad Caverns. For anyone who has seen Planet Earth, they know how spectacular they are. For anyone who hasn't, go and watch the caves episode. We started with the natural entrance tour - a self- guided tour that descends 800 feet from the wide opening of the cave a little over a mile of a walk. The change in scenery is incredible as you descend into the darkness. The scale of the various features created by the dripping calcite water are the most amazing I have ever seen. The tour ends at the concession area 800 feet below the ground where you can get water, a small snack or use the restrooms. There is also an elevator here for the fat and lazy to descend into the cave system. From here we went on the Kings Palace ranger led tour. We went through 4 rooms in this tour, each filled with densely populated features. In one of the rooms we all sat down and they turned the lights out to experience complete darkness. The ranger then lit a candle to show the amount of light the person who discovered the cave system had when he was exploring it originally. At the end of this tour we ran back to do the big room self guided tour which closed 10 minutes after our previous tour. This is the most popular tour - probably because it's free, you can take the elevator to and from it and it is realatively flat. Apart from that, it is an incredible experiance to walk through this massive room. At some parts the height difference between the roof and the floor is in excess of 800ft (that's over 250m to those of use who are normal and use the metric system). At the end of the tour we took the elevator up the 75 storeys and had some dinner in the RV before the bat flight program (or as Mark said to the Ranger the 'Bat Show' and he got pretty offended).
From April until October (weather dependant) thousands upon thousands of Mexican Free Tail Bats live in Bat Cave in Carlsbad Caverns. And every evening at dusk these bats leave the cave system to go and eat. And they all leave through the natural entrance. At around 7pm a park ranger started giving a talk in the stone amphitheater. During this he talked all about the bats, what they eat, how they go about it, how they breed etc. until the gasps of the school children above us informed everyone that they were starting to leave. Everyone sat in silence as the bats flew out of the cave in a counter clockwise corkscrew direction and into the distance. We stayed and watched for about half an hour until it was getting quite dark. It was a natural spectacle that I will not forget for a long time and made the 900 mile trip worth it. From here we hit the road
north to our next planned stop - Petrified Forest. We drove back along the highway, through Roswell (it was dark and quite forgetful - maybe better during the day) and back onto the interstate system. This time I-40 and we stopped at the first rest area we met.
The following morning we woke late and took our time having breakfast and hitting the road. It was midday before we left and we had a three hour drive ahead of us to get to Petrified Forest. We stopped at a trucker stop and had Laguna Burgers - big half pound mince burgers). As we got close to where we wanted to be we realised it was going to be quite late and we wouldn't get to see what we wanted to see so we headed for an RV park. The RV park was situated on route 66 which we had been driving on/beside for a good few miles. It was nice to drive a bit of it to say we were there but it's a road in a really bad state of repair, some of it is just a dirt track and some of it is totally gone, replaced by interstates. Alot of towns along the way really sell themselves using the route 66 brand and Winslow (where we were staying) was one of them.
We woke early-ish the next morning. I had a chat with the RV park manager to try and get my head around what time zone we were in. The maps tell you once you head west from California you are on Mountain Standard Time. Mountain Standard Time doesn't follow daylight saving time so during the Summer it is the same as Pacific Standard Time. However, the Indians and
everyone else in Mountain Time (basically not Arizona as far as I can make out) follow Mountain Daylight Time which is an hour ahead all the time. So we basically spent (and will spend) the last (and next) few days losing and gaining an hour.Now having the full day meant that we could see something that I had wanted to see but didn't think we would make - Meteor Crater. It was formed about 50,000 years ago when a meteor struck in the middle of the Arizona desert. It's completely in the middle of nowhere in the flat Arizona desert. As you approach the land starts to rise and when you get out on the viewing platforms it becomes pretty aparant why. There is a unbelievably big hole caused by a rock coming in from outer space. It is the best preserved crater in the world and NASA use it to train astronauts as it so closely resembles a lunar landscape. We spent a while here and then headed on to Petrified Forest.
I didn't quite know what to expect here but it had been recommended to me by a few people before we left. The easiest way to describe it is a park full of fossilised trees. Back in the day (150 million years or so) these logs were being carried by rivers and were deposited. Shortly after a volcanic eruption covered the logs in silica rich ash causing them to fossilise, thus preserving them in the process. They all turned to stone, creating some incredible coloured rocks in the trunks. Over time they split exposing these colours and they lie strewn across the park, hiking trails allowing you to get up and see them. At first I thought they were still wood like as the bark is so well preserved but when you touch them they are all rock. It really messes with the mind for a while. A thourougly enjoyable time was had here and we left the park just as the sun was setting. We hit the road towards our next stop and stopped in a different rest area on the I-40.
Another alarmless start to the day and we hit the road. Next up was Mesa Verde in Colorado, home of the only National Park in the United States created to preserve historic artefacts (all other parks are to protect natural phenomenon). This park is home to the old homes of the Ancestral Puebloans. They lived on top of the hill for alot of the 700 years they spent in the area but near the end of this time the crops didn't grow as well and tribes were fighting and killing for food. This forced the Puebloans to build the cliff homes that are on view in the park to defend themselves. A granny with a stick could defend the places they are so hard to get to. We took the Cliff Palace tour which brings you into the largest of the cliff dwellings. You walk down stone steps in between massive rocks and around the edge of a cliff to access Cliff Palace. And what
greets you is nothing short of extraordinary. A whole vilage was built into the cliff, completely hidden from above. Families lived together in this area for years before the colder climate forced them south. Another thoroughly enjoyable tour (the beauty of national parks is that the rangers can't take tips) to a truly incredible place. We hit the road stopping at a couple of viewpoints on our way out of the park and headed for 4 corners.
4 corners is the only place in the US where 4 states touch. By the time we arrived the area was closed. There was a guy from Belfast there who showed us a hole in the fence where we could go through to go down to the area. We did this (bypassing the booth where you pay - really, you have to pay for everything in the States) and took some photos just as the sun descended. We strolled back up to the RV with a couple of bats flying over our heads and headed into the Wild Wild West for the next adventure.....
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