Journey Into the Underworld Pt. 1

Monday, April 25th – Carlsbad Caverns National Park – Day 74

Finally, we had internet reception again. We booked a 10:30am time slot to go see Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I had heard of Carlsbad Caverns but I was unaware of what was to come. We arrived and received our Junior Ranger booklets. The kids started working on them in the visitor centre while Mom and Dad got organized. We had two options, walk down to the cavern, or take an elevator. No question, we were walking.

After stern lectures about the need to take a bathroom break before entering the canyons (there was only a bathroom at the bottom, 1.25 miles walk downwards) and the need to be quiet (the cavern is an echo chamber), we went through the amphitheatre at the entrance to the cavern and started our journey of switch backs.

The cavern entrance was massive. We descended into the mouth and within minutes we were in darkness. The staff had placed lights to maximize the visual effect of the rock formations and provide enough light to make out the path. Each of the kids had flashlights so they could lead us. The caverns were huge. The ceiling of the cavern was arched above us to hold the weight of the stone above. The stone that wasn’t needed under the arch had fallen to the floor and was strewn everywhere.

We continued down switch backs with the occasional need to climb up a bit to proceed downwards. The caverns narrowed so that I had to duck at points but for the most part the view down and the view up provided spectacular views through the massive open space in the cavern.

Pretending to be zombies

To be continued...

Comments

First Day of Online School

Tuesday, February 22nd – Grayton Beach, Florida – Day 15 We signed the girls up for online schooling and today was the first day. They were on their laptops at the crack of 9am EST (8am CST which is where we were). We have decided to have them attend class for an hour a day from 9-10am and see how it goes. It provides a bit of structure and we were tired of not yelling at them to stare at a screen. Kidding. I don’t know how it’ll work out. If it doesn’t, we will pull them from school and they will be officially home schooled. Mary decided she was left out when she lost the opportunity to see the Goodwill so Gen and her went off to the store while I took the kids to the beach. We had a pretty good time. I’m not the biggest of beach fans but I have to get use to it because we are in Florida and everywhere is beach. We kicked around the soccer ball, hit around the baseball, the kids collected shells and played in a tidal pool near the beach. The surf was up so the k...

Sand Sledding on White Dunes - More Photos

Meow Wolf and O

Wednesday, May 25th –Lake Mead National Recreation Area to Las Vegas, Nevada – Day 104 We woke up in our roadside turn out and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go for a swim at Lake Mead, see the Hoover Dam and head back into Vegas. The morning was stifling hot, we were looking forward to the swim. We drove to the visitor centre at Lake Mead Recreation Centre. We could see Lake Mead on the way. The water was well below the high-water line on the rocks. At the visitor centre we got our passport stamped, filled our water bottles, and received junior ranger booklets. The air conditioning was so nice we set up the kids to work on their booklets and hung around. The kids finished up enough activities that they were sworn in by a very nice ranger before we left. We decided to go see the Hoover Dam first. We dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We heard it might need to be opened at the security checkpoint and we couldn’t be bothered. The H...

Simnett Travels

Search This Blog