Friday Sept 30, 2005

Sept 30th--Woke up in Big Bend--desert heat already starting to get up there. Noticed that our luggage pack on top of the car had some fraying. Upon closer inspection-you can see that it was more than just a little fraying. I'd say that it has a pretty big rip. Laura wanted to contiune driving with it up on the roof--with our bags in it--though we did remove the tennis racquets. Which by the way -we haven't used once--but we will! We had about a 4 hour drive to our next destination--Guadalupe mountains and then another 45 min to Carlsbad Caverns. We passed through a bunch of cute small towns. In Marathon, Texas we stopped for breakfast. We were in the Marathon Coffee Shop and some bossy woman working there gave us looks when we asked "are you still serving breakfast"..(it was 12:00 pm) "NO-breakfast has been over for an hour-here's our lunch menu" 4 seconds later she asks "ok what will it be ladies" ---we didn't get anything-we didn't like her attitude. Laura said to me later in the car she wished she said to that lady "What---where you gonna go-they are 4 places in town and you're in one of them"

Also passed through Alpine--a big rodeo town.

Marfa--little town where they filmed the James Dean movie "Giant"

As we treked closer to Guadalupe mtns--we realized that we didn't have time to spend there--Carlsbad Cavern doenst allow anyone in after 3:30pm. We arrived at Carlsbad at 3:10pm --too late to "walk" down into the cavern but in time to take the elevator down. WOW !!!! The cavern "big room" was amazing. I have to admit i have a thing for "stalagmites and stalactites--find them totally fascinating. Almost joined the SSAA (stalagmite and stalactite anonymous assoc) but it took long to drive to the meetings. They kicked us out at closing and we killed some time before going next door to listen to the "bat lecture" and view the "mass bat exodus". 400 thousand Mexican free tail bats leave the cave for their night of feeding on bugs. That truly was another amazing sight. This was the most impressive National Park --so far.

My travel schedule had us spending the night in Carlsbad but Laura and I decided to go ahead and do the 5 hour drive to Santa Fe. Our friend Pam lives there and the thought of a nice bed and hot shower was too tempting. That drive was hard--and yes-- I actually helped! I drove the last 2 hours of it...from 1:00 am to 3:00 am when we finally arrived!!