No pictures today – we spent most of the day driving from Colorado Springs down to Carlsbad, New Mexico. In the morning we went to the Garden of the Gods, which was pretty, but somewhat unimpressive after the splendor of Arches. It’s a small park with some giant rocks, which I climbed on. We took a few pictures there, but nothing great, and I’m once again on the cellular connection… so, hopefully, more photos tomorrow.

Anyway most of the day was spent in the car, except for a few pee breaks in some very sketchy areas. There was actually a bumper sticker for sale that read: “With Guns, Trucks and Beer, who needs women?” Ah, nowhereseville.

It seemed like it took forever to get out of Colorado – and everything from southeastern Colorado to southeastern New Mexico is mainly huge expanses of farmland…endless, endless farmland. We were looking forward to stopping in Roswell and finding some tacky alien stuff, but we were pretty disappointed with what we found. The UFO museum was closed, and other than lampposts featuring “alien eyes” we saw few signs of the famed Roswell mythology. We couldn’t even find an alien café or anything like that to eat at, so we left, a bit disappointed. We did, however, spot a UFO circling the sky above us… Actually, it turned out to be a stealth fighter plane. Not sure which if that’s better or worse…

But fortunately, we got to Carlsbad in time to reach the Carlsbad Caverns by dusk, when 100,000 bats emerge from the entrance to the caves… We were able to watch their nightly migration, which was really fascinating. They were much smaller and quieter than I thought… but it was a really intriguing sight to see.

It was finally Cindy’s turn to avoid wildlife on the road… a deer and a jackrabbit. Now we’re in our room at the Continental Inn, and I’m bummed because McDonald’s stiffed me on my hamburger so I had to make do with salad and half a McFlurry (Emily, stop screaming at me… also had a bite of Cindy’s chicken sandwich and I ate plenty of other food today).

Anyway I guess that’s the update. Tomorrow morning we go back to the Caverns to see the interior of the caves, and then we drive to San Antonio…

All is well… enough for now.