This morning was a fairly early start, with breakfast consumed at the hotel. It’s free! And, it was filling enough…carbs, yogurt. Nothing special, but adequate.
We loaded up the car and got on the road just before 8, a few minutes ahead of Kim and John, because we needed to stop for gas. The Prius was definitely amazing for this trip. This was only our second fill up, and we had driven HUNDREDS of miles.
From here it was less than half an hour to the sign at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. And wouldn’t you know, Kim and John pulled in right behind us at the sign.
From the sign it was a good 10-15 minutes up to the visitors center. It was a winding drive up the mountain. It was a beautiful ride, and although there’s no photographic evidence, we even saw some bighorn sheep!
Once we were parked at the visitors center, we explored the displays, particularly the model of the cavern. And then we checked in for our self-guided cave tour.
Once checked in and ready, we headed outside to the natural entrance to the cave. We got a couple talks on the dos and don’ts of going into the cave, and then we were on our way!
There are two ways into Carlsbad Caverns: the elevator, or the natural entrance. The natural entrance is 1.25 miles of switchbacks down into the cavern. We went this route, because it’s part of the experience. Once you’re truly into the cavern, it’s another 1.25 miles around on the Big Room Trail. Most of us did this too. John had managed to get ahead of us at some point and didn’t realize how far ahead of us he was, so we finally caught up to him at the end, because he took the route over to the bathrooms and elevator, rather than continuing through the cave. Unfortunate, but now Kim and John have a reason to go back! Carlsbad Caverns was exhausting, but incredible. Seriously, bucket list worthy.
After we’d explored the caverns and reunited with John, we took the elevator back up to the visitor center. You technically can hike back out of the caverns, but it’s like a 75 story hike, so that’s a no thanks from all of us.
Back on top of the mountain, we hit the gift shops and then headed to the parking lot for a parking lot picnic. Sandwiches have never tasted better!
And then we were off to national park 2 of the day. Guadalupe Mountains National Park is less than an hour from Carlsbad Caverns, and actually shortens the trip over to Alamogordo, which was our next stopping point, so it made sense to cruise through here. Guadalupe Mountains is not the type of national park for us. The bulk of the hikes here are 10+ miles in length. And there’s not even technically a scenic drive. But the visitors center was well done and the views of El Capitan were excellent!
Visitor center explored and mountain pictures taken, we continued the drive back to New Mexico (Guadalupe Mountains is in Texas). This drive was uneventful and took a little less than 3 hours.
We got to Alamogordo at the right time to check in, so we checked in at our next hotel, the Classic Desert Aire Motel. Alamogordo is a town of old motels, and this one had a top rating on TripAdvisor, and with taxes was a whopping $89 a night, with free breakfast, so it was a no brainer. Indeed, it was an old motel, with cool artwork, and clean rooms. We were in room 105.
Shortly after we walked in the room the front desk called, to verify the stay length, because he had two reservations with my last name. Yup, the others are my in laws, and they’re the ones staying two nights. We are just here for one. He chuckled and Nick and I hauled luggage in and decided what to do about dinner. At check in we’d been given a list of local restaurants, with the recommended ones highlighted. After Nick had narrowed things down, he compared his list to that one, and we decided to go with the Hi-D-Ho Drive-In.
This was just a couple minutes away. They were busy, and the servers were hustling. Good, quick service, and the food was decent too. I think we both had burgers.
After dinner, we headed for White Sands National Park. Park 3 of the day! It was closing in on sunset time, so we headed down the scenic drive and parked in the first lot we came to, then climbed up into the sand dunes. We explored for a bit, marveling at this beach in the middle of a desert, surrounded by desert mountains, and at some point were joined by Kim and John and settled in to watch sunset. Put watching sunset in White Sands on your bucket list. It’s an incredible experience.
Once the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, we hopped back in the cars. Kim and John went for dinner at a bistro near the hotel, and Nick and I went back to crash. It took a bit, because there was a fair amount of road noise initially, but eventually it quieted down and we both settled down and fell asleep. It had been a busy day that, at a minimum, rivaled my 4 park Disney days!
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