Writings By Location| Caves - Random Thoughts by Erin... | 1 | 2 |
Let's talk abut caves. I have a mild phobia of tight spaces, nothing major but you don't want to lock me in a closet and think I'll be happy about it later. Keith and I have seen some pretty amazing caves in the last week.
It all started with a trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico on the way to my moms in Texas. I had never been and it's one of Keith's favorite spots in the US so he wanted to take me. We made reservations for the Slaughter Canyon Cave tour. It's a two hour jaunt. I was a little apprehensive about cave exploring so we didn't book the 3 hour, crawl thru tight spaces, and get wet and dirty cave tour. They allow 6 year olds on this one so I figured I would be fine.
I really liked the whole experience. The only light in the cave are the flashlights you bring with you. Some of the formations are amazing. It's a live cave so it's still growing new formations. Stalactites and stalagmites join to form columns.
After the Slaughter Canyon tour we drove over to the main cave at Carlsbad. What a contrast to Slaughter Canyon. Carlsbad has a paved walkway with handrails and full theatrical lighting. Plus, it's huge! It's really hard to believe the immensity of the whole cave. The Big Room alone is the size of 14 football fields. The main cave takes about 3 hours to walk the 3 miles worth of trail. We rented the headsets to get the full story of the cave and its history. The audio presentation was well done with a good mix of basic facts as well as "editorial" information.
The cave formations in both Carlsbad and Slaughter Canyon were beautiful. I was astounded by the different shapes and sizes of the formations. Popcorn, draperies, tacos, lion's tails and more!
Kids, tell your parents to take you to Carlsbad Caverns!
