The only thing worth seeing in New Mexico, after driving through the entire state, is most certainly the Carlsbad Caverns. This was a request that my mom made to me while on the trip; to stop at the Carlsbad Caverns. We got into Carlsbad, NM in the evening at a small RV camp that was $20 for the night to camp. Nice and cheap, that’s what we like! As we were checking in, we actually met Cody Ross’s (from the Red Sox) in-laws who ran the site. Definitely a small world we live in. The man running the desk told us to give him the money and leave ASAP for the bat flight. Looking pretty puzzled, he explained that every night around 7:45 p.m. the bats of the Carlsbad Caverns leave the caves to hunt for the night. Only about a 7 minute drive away from the caverns, we shot up there as fast as we could and got there at perfect timing. No photography was allowed, so no pictures, but seeing 400,000 bats leave a cave is pretty insane. Wave after wave of bats was mesmerizing, watching them fly off into the sunset.
We left shortly after as the sunset was falling over the hills of the open plains surrounding the caverns. As you will see in the pictures, that sunset was one of the best I have seen in a very long time. It will definitely be one for the books and one that will stay with me forever. As for the rest of New Mexico, fly right through because there is nothing but borderlands and oil pumps for hundreds of miles.
The following day we got to the caverns first thing in the morning to do a self-guided tour of the caverns. It was about 96 degrees out that day, so we were ready for some shade. The caverns have a very stable climate, sitting right at 56 degrees. The mouth of the cavern was definitely intimidating. It looks as if you are going to walk into the opening of hell; a gaping hole probably 100 feet across welcoming you into the depths of the earth. Once inside, the lighting is very poor which makes it tough for photography. However, I turned off the flash mode and just let the aperture catch all of the natural lighting down there and some of the pictures came out great. A place like the Carlsbad Caverns makes you truly appreciate how beautiful the works of mother nature can be. 75 foot columns of minerals formed over hundreds of millions of years surround you. It is seriously other worldly down there and I would highly recommend it. The entire time we were down there our heads were on a swivel, soaking in all of the unique sculptures made simply by dripping water. After about 3 hours in the caverns, our time was up in Carlsbad and were ready for the next stop: the Grand Canyon! Check out the rest of the pictures from the Carlsbad Caverns on the Ultimate Road Trip Facebook page!
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