RV Trip 2015 - Day 2, Carlsbad, New Mexico

We had a great day in Carlsbad, New Mexico. After having breakfast in the RV, we loaded up the Jeep to explore for the day. Our first stop was the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. The place was SO much bigger and better than I thought it would be. I was really surprised that Collin was so interested in the plants and wanted to read about each one of them. He had not seen cactus before and wanted to know why they had so many thorns on them.

The animals in the exhibits were great: bald eagle, leopards, bears, lots of birds, Javelina, reptile house, lots of 4-hooved animals, and prairie dogs. There were over 40 different species of animals. It was mainly outdoors so we needed to drink a lot of water which we were prepared for.

The guys looking at the bird exhibits

Collin talked a lot about zoo camp and what he learned while we were walking around

Mom and Collin on the garden path

Collin wanted a picture of the shiny rocks

Saw the really cool and fast millipede

We found out that Dad knows a lot about Bald Eagles

Fantastic view from the garden route

We spent most of our time watching the prairie dogs. These guys were so active and really cute. Several were jumping on the side of the wall trying to get out and say "hi" to us. One climbed a tree to eat the leaves and was a great acrobat.

Here are some of the dogs trying to escape or say Hi to Collin

Collin thought this was hilarious

On the look out.....what are they thinking?

After having lunch in town, we headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I was so excited to tours the cave. Collin did not remember touring Wind Cave in North Dakota on our last RV trip. Maybe he will remember this one. We arrived around 3pm and did not finish touring the cave until close to 6pm. Throughout the walk, Collin did really well. We descended in the cave for the first 45 minutes. This was also challenging because the walkway was really slick from all of the condensation in the cave. Thank goodness for the restrooms we stopped at an hour into the cave. That was amazing, too, that this, a small gift shop and cafe were built down there.

The natural entrance to the cave

At this point, we had no idea how much descending we would do.  We figured it out at the bottom....900 feet below.

Looking back at the entrance to the cave

Our favorite part of the cave was the Big Room which is the size of 14 football fields put together.  The formations there were AMAZING. Collin had fun pointing out the stalactites and stalagmites. He also wanted me to help him find all of the water. I think he liked looking at the water because it was like glass...so clear and smooth. 

Pictures from the Big Room

We walked along every trail on this map

 

On our way home, we stopped to develop a few of the pictures from the day so Collin could journal about the day. He was not happy with the idea of journaling

At the RV, he felt great. We cleaned up the Jeep more and I washed a load of clothes ($3....scrapped up all of the quarters we had which was not enough to fully dry the clothes). Time to relax after such a great first day.

On to Phoenix tomorrow. That should be another 9-10 hour drive.