Chillin in Phoenix with a beer called "Walk on Water" (Jesus juice)
"God is love. Let's love one another." :)
Last night in Phoenix, at Caroline's!
Surfboard
Heyyyyyy
Ku, Caroline, Shep, and CC
Posin
Cheers to our last night!
Wearin Shep's shoes
Scenery from Phoenix to Tucson
Beautiful Tucson!
Frogger
Gorgeous Tucson sunset
This is on a wall under a bridge. Tons of pictures of Tucson residents. So cool!!
Sarah squared!
Testing the light rail with bags of sand..... Weird and creepy.
Bicycle art around the trash cans on 4th Avenue
Lego newspaper man
Bye bye, Arizona!
Hellooooo, New Mexico!
VTB in New Mexico!
Short time in New Mexico on the way to Texas
Yep, that's a tumbleweed!
Drive friendly. You know, the Texas way.
Mannn these prickly thangs were stuck allllll over the tires!
Our shoe soles too!
Hola!
Three amigos in El Paso, TX
Cross on a mountain. I can't remember if this was in U.S. or Mexico
Makin friends at the horse race track. They introduced us to a new shot called Gorilla Fart, which consists of Bacardi 151, Bacardi 101, and Jack Daniels. This is WHOA STRONG.
That red X is in Mexico. Can kinda also see the highway border in lights.
Not sure what this says. Can anyone decipher and translate?
This border stop was outside of El Paso, TX on the road towards Carlsbad, NM.
Drive to Carlsbad, NM
This was a little lake. When we first saw it we thought it was sand until we looked a little closer and saw ripples.
Ain't nothin out here!!
Entrance to Carlsbad Caverns!
Epic entrance. See the people on the right for scale.
Goin into the mouth of a cave!
Windy trail
Yes, we are goin in THERE!
So excited!
Beautiful Carlsbad Caverns
Hootie couldn't miss this!
Hootie echoed "hoo hoo" :)
Lion's tail
Such neat formations
BOOB
This is called the Chandelier
Wow, that cavern was AWESOME. So huge! The Natural Entrance Trail is a 1.25 mile (2 km) descent equivalent to about 79 stories. At the bottom was the Big Room Trail, which is another 1.25 miles. You can take the Natural Trail back up, but we were too late leaving so we took the elevator up. I really like that they had windows in the elevator so that you can see the rock of the cave around the walls of the elevator. HIGHLY recommended, this was wonderful!
Next day we were driving from Carlsbad, NM to Sonora, TX and saw this enormous flame by what I believe is part of an oil rig operation. Hope this was planned cuz it looked pretty high!
Boob hill.
Caverns of Sonora. These peacocks hung around the info center for the caverns.
We were surprised because we weren't told anything about the distance of the tour, the length of the tour, how far down we'd be going, none of that. All we were told is that it's warm and we can't bring any water, jackets, or backpacks. The cave is 71 degrees with a 98% humidity level which makes it feel about 85 degrees. To start the tour off, we were locked into the cave entrance building. They are really strict about keeping the doors closed because oxygen harms the caves. I'll explain below. What we were told AFTER being locked in was that the trail was about 2 miles long, takes about 2 hours, went down about 155 ft, and had 360 stair steps. Also, hope you peed before the tour, cuz there are no spots for that; however, our tour guide was well stocked with ziplock bags in case the urge hit. Oh, and one more *minor* thing... Carbon dioxide concentrations are higher than normal at the bottom of this cavern. WHAT?? Hah, why on earth were all of these things not told to us until after we'd been locked in the cavern? We were completely fine, but I was absolutely shocked that pamphlets or signs aren't ubiquitous with this information. Even upon looking at the FAQ on the website, there is no mention of the CO2 levels. They do a "black out" in the middle of the cave where they turn off all the lights so you can get a true sense of total darkness (we were all sitting down). I will admit, I felt a little disoriented after this point in the tour until it was over and I believe it was because of the CO2 levels. I know this review sounds super critical, but we had a FANTASTIC time! Our tour guide, Brandy, was very knowledgable and thorough and it was a phenomenal tour. In comparison to Carlsbad Caverns, these were much more small and intimate. I couldn't say one was better than the other because they are so different. Both absolutely beautiful!
Start of the tour goin down
"I'm in a cave!"
Popcorn
This white area at the top of one part of the cave shows the damage that is caused by oxygen. When the doors to the cave are opened, oxygen comes through and is trapped in ceiling pockets and makes the rock smooth. This damages the rock and alters the cave's original and natural state, which they try to prevent as much as possible by keeping the doors locked and only turning on lights when people are in the cave.
This helps to show the scale. Much of the cave is only about 7 ft high, so many people had to duck throughout the tour. I, of course, was not one of them, being short has it's perks! ;)
Bacon!
These circular things in the wall are geodes (those balls of rock that you can crack open and find crystal, amethyst, etc). However, these particular ones are so delicate that they would disintegrate if you touched them. So DON'T TOUCH THEM!!
This area was taller (see Shep for scale)
Cauliflower!
Chyeah
Winter wonderland
Wishing well. We both wished for a terrific 2014!
"Ski slope"
Horse shoe pond
Applesauce!! (This is rock hard)
Fishtail formation
Soda straw formations. These are hollow and very fragile!
Broken piece
Formations that look like brush cleaners
Crazy triangular rock
The white area and brown spots are evidence of people touching this rock.
The cave was hugging him! The walkways were pretty narrow at points
Big skull
More bacon rock!
This was at the end of the tour. See how white and smooth the cave is here? That's because of the oxygen exposure. Fascinating!
Hey, sunset
Took a while to get good enough internet to post this, so thanks for sitting through all the pictures! We're off to San Antonio tomorrow for the Super Bowl! Then Houston, then New Orleans, then home to Atlanta!! :-D
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