Since we left Tucson on Wednesday morning we have traveled over 1000 miles. Now it is Saturday morning and we are at the southern tip of Texas in Brownsville. Along the way we stopped at Kartchner Caverns State Park near Tucson, Calsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico and visited my cousin Carol in San Antonio.
Carlsbad Caverns and Kartchner Caverns are both caves but they were very different.
Kartchner was discovered in 1974 and was kept a secret for years until the discoverers could work with the owners and the state to create a new state park which was opened in 1999. The cave has been preserved. The discovers went into the cave through a sink hole. To enter the cave when we were there we went through new sealed doors to a new tunnel entrance. The doors are sealed so that the cave will not dry out and die. IKartchner has beautiful formations and is beautiful. But the most impressive thing about Kartchner is that it is a living pristine recently discovered cave.
Carlsbad on the other hand is stupendously big and awe inspiring. At Carlsbad caverns We took the self guided hiking tour which goes into the natural entrance of the cave. The entrance is a big hole in the ground. We hiked down switch backs on a trail down into the big hole. We went down, down, down. Every time I thought we were at the bottom we would come around a corner and there would be more switchbacks going down. It literally felt like we were descending down into the bowels of the earth and it was as beautiful as it was awe inspiring.
We descended 750 feet almost straight down and when we got to the bottom we explored enormous caverns full of impressive structures. The Big Room that we explored is 8.2 acres big and has a ceiling that is immense. We took the elevator back to the surface.
Carlsberg Caverns were fantastic they were totally different from Kartchnar Caverns. Both of them were fascinating.
From Carlsbad we headed to San Antonio. We had lunch with my cousin Carol and her husband in San Antonio and then drove on to Brownsville where we are now. Today we are crossing into Mexico.
We ave been having picnic lunches most days. Thursday we stopped In Pecos, Texas and bought some local cantaloupes and then had one for lunch. Boy! Was it good. The 100+ temperatures are pretty impressive too!
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