DAY 06: Carlsbad

Saturday, April 5th

We woke up to birdsong and bright blue sky, which was in odd contrast to the general atmosphere of the Motel 6, but I was not about to complain. Skye had spied out a place for breakfast that turned out to be great food. Not only by far the best we had in Carlsbad, but great food, period. It was called "The Blue House", and was indeed a blue house, surrounded by a green garden and happy people sitting in the sun (not something we saw anywhere else in Carlsbad). Everything was clearly home made, and my fresh carrot-ginger juice and egg, cheese, sausage and green chile ciabatta was wonderful. We all were happier for going, but were very sad to hear they were closed on Sunday (as, it turned out, was pretty much everything).

We drove out to the caverns around 11. I'm sure most people have gone to them, but I never have. Dave went when he was about 9, as did my mom, back in 1952. Scott White is an avid caver, and in fact used to map caves. He organized this part of the trip and we thank him heartily! He'd taken Kaki when she was 7, and now wanted to take Egan as well. We were all going to do the self-guided tour of the main cavern today, then split up to do two different guided tours tomorrow.

The visitor center is under construction, but the location is still beautiful--high on a butte, with an endless view of the surrounding desert. The cavern entrance is an ampitheater, so that people can sit comfortably while waiting for the bats to exit on summer evenings. We missed that (it's a little early in the year for reliable bat sightings), but the main cave itself was more than enough beauty to absorb in one day.

It's surprising how cool and how moist the air gets almost immediately as you descend into the cavern. All I know about caverns is a lava tube walk I did once, and reading Tom Sawyer a long, long time ago. It got dimmer and dimmer, and even the number of people there (a lot, but apparently very few compared to summer crowds) didn't distract from the wonder of it. I mainly thought of Nibelheim, and Tolkein.

As we moved down, my throat got scratchy. I realized that the cough I'd fought for weeks in Portland must have disappeared as we entered the desert and now that I was back in a cool, damp environment it had returned! Ah well. It also took me awhile to relax about things not falling down. I come from earthquake country, and it's hard to remember that this is actually an incredibly stable place to be (possibly too stable--I chatted with a lady from El Paso later and she said that sure, they didn't have earthquakes or anything like that to contend with there, but then nothing really happened at all, which was sort of a pity).

We got to the bottom of path, and then took the 59 second ride back to the top to hit the bathrooms (the bathrooms at the bottom being out of service). So strange to literally pop up to daylight and then right back down again. We had lunch at the restaurant in the cavern (who can resist eating 750 feet below the surface?). The food was an 00' version of the cafeteria food I'd heard it used to serve. Junk food in plastic bags, oreo pie anyone? Still, eating 750 feet down was cool!

We entered the Big Room, the second part of the self-guided tour. The formations were incredible, and just kept getting more so. What it reminded me of most of all was the Summer Palace in Beijing. There is so much there, so many details, and so much astounding amazingness, that after a few hours you just sort of go numb. About an hour into the walk I realized my memory card was full. I mean, I kept oohing and aahing, because it is so gorgeous, but it is a lot to take in.

We took the elevator back up (the path down is one way), and lay about on the picnic tables, yawning. Walking downhill for 2 hours uses some funny muscles. We finally opted to go home and nap, then attempt, once again, to find something to eat.

I spent about 30 minutes on the interweb trying to find somewhere decent to go. Anything foodish about Carlsbad just said the Blue House was good. Well, there were a few other places, but when we finally went looking for them, they were all closed. On a Saturday night. Even the pit bbq place we were hoping for, which actually was open, was having a private party. We ended up eating at a bbq and Mexican restaurant (not a promising mix, actually) that used to be a Dairy Queen. It was...middlin'. They had a sign in olde country type which read "count your blessings". So we did, and fled back to the hotel and to bed, since Skye, Egan and I were up early for our Sunday tour.