Batastic

Post for Monday:
Our goal today was to make it to Carlsbad Caverns, not an ambitious goal mileage wise but exciting none the less. We left El Paso and headed out towards the Guadalupe Mountains. It was surprisingly cool. After 2 days of interstate riding it was nice to get on a backroad again, and we enjoyed being one of the few travelers on the road. That is until we discovered there is no premium gas between El Paso and Carlsbad!! We stopped at the one station on the route which had only regular. It was a curious place, with turkeys running about and quail in cages; the owner, I presume, sat on a chair in front of the blue cement block building observing us. Cvstar and Burgma changed into warmer clothes for the mountain pass (approx. 4000 ft) which was in our view. However we could not believe that this was our only opportunity to get gas (the map showed a few ‘towns’ and intersections with other roads). We continued our speedy pace set by Cvstar in the lead until Cvstar had to switch to her reserve tank and then we slowed down drastically to get as many mpgs as we could. At every turn or intersection we expected there to be gas but instead there would be an abandoned station or boarded up building –no gas. We coasted into White’s City outside of the National Park with little to spare. The Guadalupe Mountains we passed through were probably the prettiest mountains so far. They were upright bare buttes with rolling green mountains surrounding them. And as we approached them we saw cattle, horses, deer, a lizard, and another Border Patrol station. This time instead of saluting us through, the officer asked each of us if we were citizens, and then let us pass when we responded affirmatively. Just before the mountains were the Salt Flats that looked like white sand marshes.
We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns in time to tour the Big Room. An elevator took us down 750 ft underground at a pace of 9mph. The Big Room can hold 6 football fields and contains some large and impressive formations. The big highlight however was the ‘bat show’. We sat in an outdoor amphitheater and watched cave swallows swooping over the enormous natural entrance to the caves which was below us. Eventually the cave swallows all went in the cave. Then, a puff of bats emerged from the cave followed by a steady stream of bats that circled counterclockwise for 1 or 2 rotations as they rose out of the cave entrance and then flew off into the sunset. They just kept coming; the ranger said they estimate over 300,000 bats live in the cave. It was an amazing site. The cave was discovered by settlers who saw the bats. They then proceeded to ‘harvest’ the guano and sell it to farmers in S. Calif as fertilizer. At some point, touring folks through the cave became more lucrative. They used to lower the tourists into the cave using the large buckets that used to carry the guano out of the cave. I was happy to have the elevator!
The GPS failed us on finding our hotel tonight. It led us many miles out of our way before we gave up on it. It was way too cold to be lost in Carlsbad. It’s back into Texas in the morning.