Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Click here to see Set 3 of our Road Trip 2007 photo gallery.
Sorry this is a bit late. We had issues finding internet access the last couple days.
We were pretty excited to do New Mexico today. Ive (Garrison) been talking about wanting to see Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell for like 12 years now, so its about time I actually made it, heh.
We finally timed something well Carlsbad Caverns were free of charge today! The caverns are super huge definitely the biggest ones any of us had ever been in. We did the self-guided two-mile tour, at the beginning of which we were given the touch nothing spiel. This one was actually pretty unique, however, due to Ranger Dans sacrificial stalagmite. At the top of this stalagmite there were two soft mounds, so naturally Joel gave them a little feel. It was too quick to grab photo evidence, but Ranger Dan did see this uncouth molestation of his rock. Instead of yelling or kicking us out however, he simply asked Mr. Cop A Feel if he would have done the same if said mounds were hanging from the bottom. Needless to say Joel could think of little by way of a come back and simply stammered something that vaguely resembled a no! Well played Ranger Dan, well played.
Unfortunately the low lighting did not facilitate the taking of 100% awesome pictures, so we didnt post a lot of them that were too blurry or whatever. We did get a couple pictures that are so fantastic you could put them on postcards, so it all evens out in the end. Any pictures you may be able to capture dont do the place justice though. Its most certainly a you-need-to-see-it-in-person kind of deal.
The biggest disappointment of the caverns was definitely the Bottomless Pit. Turns out, it actually has a bottom thats only 140 feet down. Our guess is that Pit with Bottom didnt have the same effect.
After we left Carlsbad we headed towards Flagstaff via Roswell, New Mexico. We didnt see any aliens unfortunately, but we did visit the coolest antique shop ever. Joel got some totally sweet signs and I (Garrison) found a King cornet in amazing shape for 86 dollars. You couldnt slash that price any lower, unless you used one of the Nazi Youth knives that were for sale in the cabinet on the back wall.
Also random was the truck from Rocky Mount, NC that we saw while eating. Not quite as random as Daniel seeing someone he knows on the streets of New Orleans, but pretty close.
We went to see the Very Large Array (the giant radio telescopes you probably saw Jodie Foster use in Conact) after Roswell. It was getting really close to bring dark so we had to hurry the last 49 miles. Joel broke the old speed record of 110 by getting to 114, but only for a second. We got some pretty decent pictures of the sunset with the telescopes in the background too, but we didnt stay very long because it was really cold.
Holy crap! We almost destroyed our car with Hank on the way to Arizona from The Very Large Array tonight. For those of you who dont know or may not be as familiar with Hank, hes our deer friend from Badlands National Park who stood in the middle of the road and wouldnt move. Hank apparently also transformed into a huge elk since last year. Luckily Joel has cat-like reflexes and avoided splattering the crap out of a giant elk.
Springerville, Arizona has a Razor Scooter gang.
