We finally make it to the west coast from New Mexico to California!
I’ll also post pics on my Instagram (adventures_by_anne), so follow along there too.
Day 11
Good morning! We woke up bright and early because we have a jammed-packed day planned. Gonna try to hit 3 national parks in one day! Ready to come along?
Our hotel in Whites City is literally on the road into Carlsbad Caverns National Park, granted it was at least a 10 minute long road, but very scenic. The sun was rising as we drove in, so we watched it rise in front of the Visitors Center before heading in. So beautiful! (pic above)
Note: there are two ways to enter the caverns. The easier way is to go to the Visitors Center and take the elevator down the 750ft to the cavern rooms, which is what we did. If you’re more adventurous, you can go to the natural entrance and hike down yourself. It’s a little over a mile hike but it is steep and strenuous. If you’re driving into the park via Google Maps, make sure to map it to the correct entrance – either the Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center or the Carlsbad Caverns Natural Entrance.
After exploring the exhibits in the Visitors Center a bit, it was time for our 750 feet elevator ride down to the caverns. Despite the huge descent, it was amazingly fast and smooth.
We walked the almost 2 mile paved loop around the Big Room caverns. It was huge! We spent about 2 hours down there, but could’ve stayed even longer if we explored some of the side rooms also. These pics don’t even capture well the size and beauty of it all, but I tried. I think I took over 100 pics, so here are just a few.
If you ever get a chance to go, do it!!! During certain times of the year, you can also go to the natural entrance and see tons of bats fly out for the night, which I heard is quite a sight to see. Unfortunately it wasn’t happening during the time we were there, but perhaps we’ll catch that on a future trip. We’ve been to other caverns around the country before, but this one tops them all. It exceeded all expectations. So amazing!
After checking out the gift shop and adding to our collection of fridge magnets, we head out to the next park for today – Guadalupe Mountains NP.
Day 12
Day 13
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Adventures By Anne 