Sept. 1 & 2

Sunday - hard to believe it is September here, it is still hot like summer.  Went to 9:00 Mass at St. Edwards in Carlsbad, NM.   Very nice parish, they had added on to their church at some point, so the altar was in the middle between the two additions and faced sideways.  The sending song was America the Beautiful, it was great to be able to sing the descant (softly).
After mass, we went to the city park.  The Pecos River runs through Carlsbad and they have a lovely lake waterfront area for swimming, boating and picnics.  An oasis in the desert, green grass, shade and water!  We changed into boating clothes and finally got our kayak on the water.  What an enjoyable day!  We boated for awhile, than swam a little, had a little lunch at the concession stand and boated some more.
We picked up groceries on the way home.  It was 101 degrees on the way back.  Settled in and then went for a walk after supper.

#11 our shaded campsite

Carlsbad City Park on Pecos River

The Captain and his ship

The last sunset in New Mexico

Monday, Labor Day - up early for a walk and then a few morning chores.  At noon we headed to the Carlsbad Caverns.  There are a number of tours available, we did the Natural Entrance tour.  This 1¼-mile tour follows the traditional explorer’s route, entering the cavern through the large historic natural entrance.  The Natural Entrance route descends more than 750 feet into the earth following steep and narrow trails through a tall and spacious trunk passage called the Main Corridor.
At the bottom, we continued on to the Big Room route, a one-mile, self-guided underground walk around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave.
The hike down was steep and many times we and the trail were being dripped on from the stalactites. The path was lit well enough for walking, a flashlight would have been helpful at times. A lot of amazing sights and formations.  Gary was happy there were no earthquakes that occurred then.  
At the bottom, we toured the Big Room, wow, it was like an underground cathedral!  75 stories underground and there were still bottomless pits going further down.  Gary said some parts reminded him of the catacombs in Rome.  Hard to believe it was this huge, the trail there at the bottom was at least the mile+ long they said it was.    http://www.nps.gov/cave/index.html
When we came back to the surface there were rain clouds moving in.  We went back to 
Carlsbad for supper, but not much was open.  We ended up eating at Lotaburger.
It must have rained good at the campground, our mat was soaked and there were water puddles. Much cooler, thank goodness.  The tent campers were all gone, but 4-5 little motorhomes came in that evening.

Cave formations

In the Big Room

Forest Ranger wannabe

View from the parking lot of the Caverns