Carlsbad Caverns Continued and Guadalupe Mountain National Park

Fri Apr 8
We returned to Carlsbad Caverns again today. We were there early but the 2:00 PM King's Palace tour was already booked up. We did not wish to be rushed through the Natural Entrance to make the 10:00 AM tour so we skipped guided tours for the day. Dad did some research on our camera last night and found how to make our pictures even better. We took our sweet time down through the Natural Entrance which descends 750 feet from the surface. We then walked around the Big Room and took many pictures, some that were new and some to replace those that were not so good from yesterday. As with yesterday we rode the elevator back to the surface. In all we spent another six hours in the Caverns. I am convinced after two days that one could discover new vistas on each successive trip back. The Caverns we visited are so huge and wondrous and from the many other caves available in the Park I realize that we only scratched the surface of what could be seen. Our intention was to move on to the nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the way back to El Paso tomorrow morning but we learned that a government shutdown was imminent tonight and
all national parks would be closed Saturday morning. Even though we were a couple of hours beyond checkout we got a refund for tonight from the Whites City RV Park and headed for Guadalupe Mountains Park.

We got there a little before 5:00 PM and took a hike beginning at the historic Frijole Ranch complex,

first to the beautiful Manzanita Spring

then on to Smith Spring in the grotto at the base of the mountains

and then back by dusk. It was scenic with about 500 feet of elevation gain

and after six hours on my feet in Carlsbad I was past my endurance limit so I didn't go even the few yards to explore around the Ranch dwellings with Dad. There he got to see a small herd of javelinas but they were so skittish and it was dark enough that getting any kind of a picture was very difficult.

I was very sick all last night but I managed such a strenuous day and Dad told me I was a "real trouper" for sticking with it to take this extra hike in case we had to leave in the morning.