You may call the wind Mariah, but I've got a name I can't type here...

Day 5

We packed the camp and headed to Carlsbad Cavern. We chose to take the tour through the natural entrance, a long descent into the cave system. There's not much I can say to do justice to this. The cavern is a huge limestone formation left over from the days when this part of the planet was ocean. Chemical reaction has carved out the cave system, leaving gypsum as a by product. The cave is heavily decorated with Stalagmites, stalactites, draperies and "cave popcorn." You just have to see it. We ended up taking both the self guided tours. Sean did the Junior Ranger program and we had several interactions with the ranger staff. They were really great, showing us marine fossils embedded in the cave walls and demonstrating the photoluminescence of some of the stone.



We spent a bit more time there than we had initially planned for, so we decided to camp at a state park north of Carlsbad on the Pecos river. There was a big fiesta in progress with live music, so camping was at a premium. The scene was pretty--the park has a large reservoir, but we had our first encounter with New Mexico's winds. We were using our smaller umbrella tent and the winds were so high we could barely set it up. It collapsed several times under the force of the gusts.

Jack rabbits and scorpions went about their business as we ate dinner. And bugs...New Mexico is full of bugs. The wind dropped to nothing by bedtime, leaving us baking in the tent. About midnight, the high winds came back and we took turns holding the tent up from the inside.

New Mexico has some great features, but I'll take Georgia and it's thunderstorms over Santa Anna breezes.