One Lap

Date: 11/12/2013

Day: 47

Location: Carlsbad, NM

Miles Today: 341

Total Miles: 11,127

Iffy, Very Iffy, No More Texas, Carlsbad Caverns, Does Anyone Read This? Seen On The Road, Tomorrow

Not Too Sure About this One

After yesterday's political screed, you are owed something interesting. You may not get it here. On offer, actually is more on how flat west Texas is and pictures of the inside of a cave. Not what a Mennonite would call gay.

No More Texas

Well, in fact, there were still several hours of Texas to deal with.

There are very many pictures of flatitude. Here are several. Yes, they look much the same.

This one has a very good "all the way to the horizon" air about it.

Once again, the Colonel finds it interesting that it is the land itself that is flat. This is not flatness imposed from above, perhaps by farmers to facilitate planting, but flatness inborn. The strata can't lie. Well, they can lay, but not..... The pictures above were chosen to emphasize this a bit unfairly. Actually the land has a not unattractive roll, caused by erosion. The occasional rainfall has to get to the Mississippi, or more likely the gulf via the Rio Grande or the Pecos, somehow. Not that there is much of that to worry about. Trees have pretty much given way to bushes this far west.

A windmill! There is some wind power electric generation out here.

There, in the distance, just to the right of the road, our first mesa.

The Petroleum extraction activity here is much less frenzied than in North Dakota, but they are still drilling.

More flat.

And, to be fair, occasional pecan trees.

The Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad New Mexico and the nearby Caverns are really off the beaten path. It is more than an hour north of I-10 to get there and other than something as unusual as a One Lap journey, why would anyone be on I-10 with at least half a day to kill? Is it worth the journey? This is a tough call. It certainly is an amazing place. You access the publicly open area with a 750 foot elevator ride. There is a walk on an asphalt path that takes about an hour and a half at "museum stroll" speed. The Colonel exclaimed out loud more than once while walking that path.

They describe the "big room" as being the size of 14 football fields. The great open space was made by weak hydrochloric acid (water plus sulfur from petroleum deposits) eating away the same limestone deposits we have been admiring in road cuts. On the one hand it is what one expects to see, stalagmites, stalactites, columns of rock, curtain of rock. On the other hand it does not disappoint. The scale is amazing. The subtle colors are amazing. It is very cleverly lit.

Taking pictures in this large, dark space with a hand held camera is an uncertain task. There are even more pictures of the inside of this cave in our hard drive than there are of flat landscapes with road stretching to the edge of the world. What follow are some of the better pictures. It is impossible to convey the sense of scale that is so overwhelming when one is standing there.

The Carlsbad Caverns were formed inside the Guadalupe mountains. Not so flat here. This image is taken form the parking lot of the visitors center looking west.

Better pictures are available on line, of course.

Is it worth the journey? If you are on I-10, by all means try to stretch you time and make a visit.

Does Anyone Actually Read This?

Well, that is hard to say. And probably matters not a jot. There is a good deal of data available to the blogger from BlogSpot. There have been views of this blog made from Germany, the UAE and Belgium -- all probably some automatic search gadget. There have been single digit thousand page views of the blog. The Colonel is not sure what a pageview is and BlogSpot declines to define the term. Many of those are probably generated while the product is being produced.

Most folks who choose to respond do so by private email which is fine.

Seen On The Road

The Boulder Motel, at least what remains of it. And there is vacancy, thank goodness.

A bumper sticker. And look what it got him. See yesterday's report on the Alamo.

Tomorrow

One way or the other (there are , in fact, two ways to get there -- over the mountain or around the mountain) we will be in Socorro, New Mexico, visiting family. Then on to Phoenix.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013