Carlsbad

We decided to take a trip to Carlsbad, NM over the 4th of July weekend since Steve was able to get Friday afternoon off. It's been on our "want to go" list since we moved here so we finally got around to going! Camping is typically the way to go in Carlsbad, but we decided with Penny still waking up a lot at night and naps and it being a billion degrees outside that we'd better stay in a hotel this time. It was a fun trip!

The best little helper!

At the hotel:

Penny prepping for her first time in a big pool!

This was the first time we'd given her a food pouch and she loved it! She gets them all the time now. She's so proud to feed herself!

We headed to the zoo there the first day. It's actually a state park with a zoo in it. We weren't very impressed. Half the animals were off exhibit, there wasn't very much variety, and they were really spread out. It was still nice to get out and see something new though!

These rocks looked really neat in person.

Penny got a little bored since we were mostly just walking and reading signs, but she was a trooper!

That night we went to "flight of the bats" at Carlsbad Caverns. Every evening during the summer a huge number of bats fly out of the caverns (where they nest) to spend the night hunting. They have a big amphitheater at the opening of the cave that you sit in and have to be pretty much silent as the bats fly out so you don't confuse them. Penny decided she was sick of waiting and wanted to be loud, so Steve and I spent most of the time watching the bats from down the trail so Penny could talk as much as she wanted. I was a little disappointed not to see them in the amphitheater, but it was still an amazing sight! They just kept coming and coming!

 The next day we headed down into Carlsbad Cavern. We just went into the great room cave since the other expeditions cost a lot of money and had age restrictions (= no Penny). It was AWESOME! We were down there for about an hour and a half just touring the cavern and Penny slept for about 90% of the time. It was so so neat to see and Steve loved that it was 50 something degrees down there! We had planned to hike down into the caves and then take the elevators back up, but when Steve bought the tickets the park ranger suggested we take the elevator down and hike out since the weekend of the 4th is their busiest and the line for the elevator can be over two hours. We decided to take her advice and I'm glad we did - the line was really long to take the elevator back up. But man, it was a hike to get out. Definitely got our exercise for the day!

One of the few things still growing in the cave. I believe they said 90% had stopped, but this one still had a drip coming onto it and was therefore still growing. It was pretty hollow beneath this stalagmite and there was a big pool of water it was sitting above.

Yay for vacations! I'd definitely recommend checking out the caverns to anyone that's interested. We'd love to go back again!