Off to Carlsbad

We have arrived at Carlsbad Caverns with clean laundry, full cooler of food, and the air conditioning on high. We're not complaining as it beats the rain by several hundred miles but it is really hot here. I am sitting here at the Carlsbad Cavern at 7:30 at night and it is still around 105 degrees. We are here for the bat flight. Mindy really wants to experience this to share with her class next year during her bat unit. We didn't do much today except travel. Not much to blog about until this show is over. No pictures are allowed during the bat exodus so all I have is a picture before it starts. The park ranger just asked us to be quiet and put away our phones.








My turn to blog . . . It's me, Mindy. :o)
So Mark is correct I am completely thrilled to have experienced the bat flight, however we have to back up before I continue with the bats.

We hung out this morning for a little while in Albuquerque and did a little grocery shopping and let the kids spend a little more time in the pool. After checking out from the quaint little RV park we decided to check out the petroglyphs in Albuquerque. Let's start by saying it was hot, Ksenia had a nice sunburn on her back with only tank tops and we were a little concerned about keeping our schedule. We found out we could do a little loop and it was a national monument for Kaleb's national parks passport book and he could get a stamp. So we put Ksenia in one of her Dad's t-shirts and headed out to the glyphs regardless of the sun. It was a good thing it was a short loop because it was hot, hotter than we Oregonians are used too. Our trip lasted about 30 minutes in total. It was time to head out to Carlsbad.







So back to the bats . . . :o) My first unit I teach in reading class is on bats and we have a blast learning about them so you can only imagine my excitement about seeing Carlsbad Caverns. We rushed (in a very safe manor) to get to Carlsbad in time to see the bat flights tonight. If we could make it tonight then we wouldn't have to alter our itinerary. It was awesome and well worth it. Ok if you're Ksenia you were ready to leave before I was but she was humoring me. We had a nice presentation from the ranger and I was able to answer her questions and share information my kids didn't even know. It was fun. Then it was silent time. If it was too noisy the bats wouldn't come so we sat and they came and they kept coming and they kept coming. :o) We watched for about 30 minutes. I could have watched longer but we hadn't even had dinner yet and it was getting late. I found out we could adopt a bat so you can guess what my class is going to do in September.

Now to bring this to a close. We had a nice relaxing morning and ended our day watching the amazing flight of the bats.



At 9:45 we started cooking Dinner. Here is the BBQ setup Mark used to cook hamburgers. It took almost an hour to finish cooking dinner on a tiny grill for a family of five.

Tomorrow we are going back to the caverns to go down into the caves. After the caves we are heading to Texas to visit with Mark's family, including Granny Striplin and the kids are totally excited about meeting new cousins.

Location:New Mexico 7,Carlsbad,United States