BATS & CAVES & ALIENS - OH, MY!

It is hard to believe but our Charley Ellen will be 8 years old in just a couple weeks! Since she had a couple days off school, we celebrated with an overnight road trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park & Roswell in southeast New Mexico for her "Early Birthday".

What a couple of cuties ready to light the candles & sing Happy Birthday. Daddy did a great job decorating the cake!

My largest suitcase was filled with gifts from us & my sister. This Barbie car was one of her favorites. But, of course, it was filled with Monster High ghouls. That's Draculaura driving with her father, Count Dracula, holding her little sister, Fangelica, on his lap. The one in the back sitting on the coffin (full of their accessories) is Elisabat, one of her new birthday ghouls. They were ready for the road trip, too!

Charley in the back seat with her car full of ghouls & her sleeping buddies. The iPad loaded with shows & movies was in the holder on the back of the front seat. On the floor was a shopping bag full of lunch & snacks as well as another one that she packed herself with whatever she needed to bring. We were ready to hit the road!

It took us five hours (with bathroom breaks) to reach the caverns from Albuquerque. Charley was a real trooper on this road trip. After finally arriving we talked to the ranger to get the "lay of the land" & decided to hike the Natural Entrance trail down into the Big Room. The trail is 1-1/4 miles long & descends 800 feet into the cave via a series of many switchbacks.

We made it! 

The Bat Flight Amphitheater where the ranger talk is held each evening from May - October. That dark square in the middle of the photo is the natural entrance to the cave.

Darrin & Charley just before starting down into the natural entrance behind them.

Gaga & Charley part way down into Carlsbad Caverns - before I knew what we were getting into.

Most of my photos inside the cave weren't the best given that the lighting was low & I soon realized a few things I had not anticipated. The cave is a cool 56 degrees BUT there is 90% humidity. My glasses & camera lens were almost constantly fogged up - AND I was sweating even more than when I was in Kauai! My hair was literally drenched & dripping down my head! Darrin & Charley zipped right down the trail with little problem but Gaga's legs were exhausted & shaking so I sent them on ahead while I took my time. And there was no way I was allowing anymore photos of me until I dried out.

This photo was taken from the spot where Charley & I were sitting in the above picture. You can see the steep switchbacks that lead into the cave. These were just the beginning of lots & lots & lots of switchbacks.

One of the columns that were created over thousands or millions of years - not sure how many.

This is part of a small river that flows inside the cave. It is near where the bats sleep during the day but the ranger told us there isn't nearly enough water for the vast number of bats to drink.

After finally reaching the end of our trek, we were greeted by a gift shop, restrooms, a small cafe & the elevators that took us 800 feet back up to the visitor center - probably not the best way to preserve the natural beauty of the caverns.

All three of us agreed that the evening bat flight was the highlight of our trip. A little before dusk the park ranger begins a talk about the hundreds of thousands of bats that live in the cave - yes, you read that right, HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS! We were instructed to power off all electronic devices - phones, cameras, tablets & not take any photos or talk once the flight began since the noises can confuse & distract the bats causing them to possibly find other homes.

When the bats began to emerge it was incredible! For over 20 minutes there was a constant stream of bats flying all around as they took off to find water & food - each bat can eat hundreds of small insects a day. Even the small children were quiet. We were all mesmerized as thousands & thousands of these amazing creatures filled the evening sky. It was a spectacle that I highly recommend seeing if you ever get the chance.

This is a photo from the National Park Service website showing the sky filled with bats. But even the beautiful sunset & countless bats in the picture can't come close to witnessing the flight in person.

We arrived at our hotel in Carlsbad about 8:30 PM ready for a good night's sleep after a long but really fun day. Following breakfast the next morning we started the trek back to Albuquerque making a stop in Roswell at the International UFO Museum.

The entire town of Roswell seems to be enamored of all things alien. There are little green men in front of gas stations & signs with various versions of aliens adorning them. Even the street lights are decorated to look like aliens.

The International UFO Museum & Research Center is located in an old theater on Main Street.

While the museum would like to take itself seriously, I got the impression that tackiness was a big part of the whole thing. An example is this scene with a couple of cutout aliens to take your photo with in front of the museum.

In the summer of 1947, a rancher discovered unidentifiable debris in his sheep pasture outside Roswell, New Mexico. Although officials from the local Air Force base asserted that it was a crashed weather balloon, many people believed it was the remains of an extraterrestrial flying saucer. Darrin believes it was some secret testing of experimental military equipment & it made a good story for those who wanted to believe it.

The interior of the International UFO Museum. If they really believe this was a "flying saucer" then wouldn't it no longer be a UFO since that means "Unidentified Flying Object" & it has now been identified? Just a question that comes to mind.

The three of us with our alien friends & their "flying saucer" behind us.

This is the scene behind us in the above photo. Every so often the spaceship spins, smoke pours out of it & colors flash. IMHO nothing convinced me that aliens have indeed landed here in our country. But they had some pretty gruesome & crazy displays throughout the museum.