Our Trip to Texas - Day Four

Thursday, October 2nd: With plans to stay in a different hotel in a different city, we had to pack everything up in the morning. We also had filled our memory card in our camera so while Kris packed, Ella and I ran to Walgreens and had our pictures put onto CD. I also ran by Goodwill and purchased a couple of sweatshirts since we'd decided to go to Carlsbad Caverns for the day. It took us forever to get out of the hotel (our fault, not theirs) but by 11:00 we were headed for Carlsbad. This turned out to be perfect timing since it was right during Ella's nap. On arriving, Tomo got checked in at the visitor center for a mere $5 and we were on our way.

We'd debated whether we sould go down the Nautral Entrance so we could talk about bats with Jacob or whether we should just take the elevator down 750 feet to the Big Room since Ella's not so great at the hiking and we didn't want her falling face first into the bat cave. Because of time, we opted for the elevator route-- this turned out to be the limit of Jacob and Ella's patience. They reall liked the cave, but were really tired after an hour and a half.

Ella, our little geologist, enjoyed yelling everything she saw, "ROCK! ROCK! ROCK! WATER! WATER!! ROCK!!!). We had been told to be quiet in the caves because of the echo, but luckily there were very few people (think 10) visiting that day and the echoes of an 18 month old didn't seem to bother anyone. Once hearing that we were in the Hall of Giants, Jacob became obsessed with the idea that the stalagmites were monsters because giants are monsters. For the next hour he kept asking, "Where is that monster's mouth? What do those monsters eat? Why can't those monsters move? Is that monster's name Red X? Are those monsters going to eat me?" He even corrected a mistaken park ranger on this subject...

Once we'd done the loop we were back up the elevator to the surface. We picked up Tomo and headed towards Hobbs, New Mexico for our new hotel. After arriving we did a quick change into presentable clothes and drove to Seminole, Texas to meet my grandmother (Gram) for dinner. Jacob and Ella did great at the restaurant and I was SO happy to have REAL Mexican food! Mmmm.... enchiladas!!! It was wonderful seeing Gram (and seeing the kids show off for her!) and we were sad to head backwards to Hobbs.

(Turn head 90 degrees...)