Land of Enchantment

El Capitan- Guadalupe Mountains National Park

El Capitan on the left and Guadalupe Peak- highest point in Texas on the right

Natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns

Speleothem

Pool

In the Big Room

Unexpected view on the way to Alamogordo- Sacramento Mountains

Windy

Handsome guy!

We crossed in to New Mexico at the Guadalupe Mountains in Northern Texas. There's a really nice National Park there.  Beautiful mountains that are a part of the Chihuahua desert. Really rugged landscape with the occasional green area fed by natural springs. Just across the border--30 miles north-- is Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This week has been really busy because of spring breaks in Texas and New Mexico.

When we got to the Caverns we were warned that the elevators were out of order so we would have to hike the whole way. I guess usually most people would take the elevator down and then tour the Big Room, which is pretty flat, then take the elevator up. The hike down through the natural entrance is 800+ feet down on a series of switchbacks that cover about 2 1/2 miles roundtrip. Once you get down there it is another 1 1/2 mile to tour the Big Room. We were thinking that hiking down and up would be good training for the Grand Canyon. We were feeling in pretty good shape but we saw a lot of people struggling and my butt was sure sore this morning after all of that climbing. 

Today we headed over to Central New Mexico so we can see White Sands National Monument tomorrow. 

We are continuously surprised by how beautiful this country is. We left relatively flat ranch land in Carlsbad and within 90 miles we were in beautiful mountains covered with pines and the occasional patch of snow. Charlie was pretty excited to run around in the snow and sniff around without any danger of cacti, but now we're back in the desert.

Heading off to do some camping tomorrow to keep Mike happy, then I get my three nights in Santa Fe in little apartment we rented close to the main plaza.