Carlsbad Caverns

After breakfast in our first full day in Carlsbad, we rode the 40 or so miles to Carlsbad Caverns.  The first thing you notice is that they had a massive wildfire that encompassed the entire National Park.  Once at the caverns, we descended 750 feet over 3 miles of trails as we moved through chambers so big that even one is larger than all of Luray Caverns combined.  It's even more impressive when you consider that the public is given only limited access to the caverns.

Although we didn't do it, at night one of the activities is to sit in the amplitheater at the opening of the caverns and watch the bats fly out.

After we left the caverns, we rode back north past Carlsbad to Roswell.  As you would imagine, everything there commercializes UFOs in a really cheesy way.  We did go into the UFO Museum which was okay in that at least they tried hard to make it worthwhile.  Finally, after that, we rode back to our KOA campground, enjoyed the pool while talking to some other folks on motorcycles and then had a nice KOA home-cooked dinner. 

Tomorrow, we hang around here without doing a lot of riding.  I know I'm worn down and need a bit of a break.