Day 4 - 6/27/2004 - Sunday
- Went to
Carlsbad Caverns, in the Sacremento Mountains.
My first experience seeing cactii and yucca growing wild.
- We walked down the natural entrance into the caverns:
- Spent much time in the beautiful caves. My camera was not really up
to taking pictures underground, but here is one that came out OK:
- Kept traveling. Stopped in a town with an impressive Oil Monument
with slightly larger than life statues. It is rare to find statues
of Geologists, Oil Workers, and old Ford pickups!
- Stopped by the old resort town of Cloudcroft.
Reputedly has the highest golf course (altitude wise) in the US, here's
a picture of a golf cart there:
- Coming down a troublesome steep mountain, you can see our next
destination in the distance:
- Arrived at White Sands National Monument
Drove around, and climbed on dunes. The sand is pure gypsum.
Extremely fun and beautiful.
- The little white dot on top of the mountain in the next picture is the
Sunspot Observatory
which we unfortunately did not get a chance to visit.
- Driving along next to a train on the way to
Three Rivers Petroglyph National Recreation Area.
Rushed around viewing petroglyphs before the horrible thunderstorm
caught up with us, causing a sand storm.
- Were very close to the Trinity Site.
- Stopped at
Valley of Fires National Recreation Area
to see recent 1500 year old Lava flow.
- Finally the rain stopped (lots of rain considering we are in a desert)
only to see a beautiful double rainbow.
- Arrive Albuquerque (2986 Miles) in midst of giant wind storm.
490 Miles Traveled on Day 4
On to Day 5