Carlsbad Caverns

August 16th and 17th

We made it to the Carlsbad Caverns just after dark, but were still able to walk to the amphitheater to watch the bats fly out for the night. It was really impressive to see the bats keep coming and coming. I had no idea there would be that many bats, in fact I was very fearful that since we had gotten there so late that we would have missed all the bats. But we watched for a good 30 minutes and had a constant stream of bats flying right over us!

Then we went back to Carlsbad to stay the night, and tour the caves in the morning.

The Visitors Center had a cute little painted board for the boys to take pictures by, I think Matthew enjoyed it the most, since almost all of the pictures have him in the hole :)

They also had a craft table set up for the children to make "bat masks" before they enter the caves. Joshua didn't want to do it at first, but luckily we talked him into it.

The boys all look so cute in the masks :) Unfortunately Ben's mask made him break out in a red rash on his face. You could still see the bat outline the next day.

This is the entrance where we watched the bats flew out the night before. Doesn't look that bad from here, does it?It gets steep very quickly though. It made Jeremiah nervous to look over the edge.Especially when we tried to have a group picture, he sat as close to the side wall as he could (this is right at a switch back). Two mask down and only 20 minutes in :) I am very grateful that we can view these caves without the hardships that earlier explores to the same area had to go through. It was really interesting to see the old trials that were used, I much prefer these ones :) At the even steeper areas they had side rails to hang on to, and a small stone wall to prevent little children from going over the side.Obviously we ran out of much light quickly, but here is one last look at the cave entrance...and we kept going down!They have an elevator that you can take to avoid the steep climb down, but I am really glad we did the hike. I was even more excited not to have to hike back up! The elevator took minutes, and the hike took about an hour. Once we were at the bottom it was extremely odd to see concession stands and small shops, it was great to have a bathroom though :) We completed another hour hike in the caves to see "the bottomless pit" and other rare rock formations. My dad got some pretty neat pictures of these, but my camera battery had died :(

Mom was holding Benjamin while they were walking under some low rocks, and told Ben to "watch your head". Latter, while I was holding Ben, anytime I walked under rocks or too close to the side Ben kept ducking and would say "watch my head"! LOL, like we would knock him out or something ;)

I think this is a place the boys will enjoy more when they are older, but they were being great troopers for such a long hike.