After breakfast we drove perhaps 30 mins to the National Park - it was actually 7 miles into the park that we found the visitors center – that made sense, after all, how could the entrance to an enormous cave be right there on the main highway?
Did we want to take the elevator down the 80 stories and then walk the 1.2 miles, or walk down the 20% grade for over a mile? What do you think? Of course we had to do it all. And we were told it would be worth it – and it was!
Evidently it took 10 years to building this sloping ramp and the other walkways – that alone was a site to see.
And the park service did a marvelous job placing light in just the right spots to show off the features to full effect.
down – just over an hour – and the wandering – about another 1.5 hours. And then took the elevator up!!
Anyone who wants to know more can obviously research the details about this cave system – it is not the largest (Mammoth Cave) but was delightful and had features (like the popcorn created at the ends of certain features) we hadnt seen elsewhere. And dont you think that looks like the Grinch? Or is it a dragon?
We werent sure if the bats were leaving or arriving back in the thousands – but we were too lazy to get up that early anyway. They are Mexican (or also called Brazilian) Free tailed bats. Evidently when the caves were first discovered, in the early 1900s, it was big business (in more ways than one) to mine out the guano. They must have done a good job because we didnt smell anything.
Then off to the eastern edge of New Mexico – where we saw quite a bit of potash mining (fertilizer – 75% of US production of from NM) and into Texas.
And did you know that Texas is big on Potatoes, and peanuts (in fact, Birdsong Peanuts is headquartered in Seminole TX – they gather directly from the farmers and send to all sorts of food creators, like M&Ms)? We saw lots of irrigated fields. And then acres and acres of cotton fields!!
We were on a main road but not an Interstate, and so occasionally we had to slow down to go thru some small towns. Why were so many churches called First United Methodist? They should have been called Only United Methodist.
What keeps us amused? Well, we passed by Lubbock and had to listen to Buddy Holly songs for one thing. Then we researched Boney M.
We saw few cattle until we got closer to Seymour, where we are sleeping. Only like 2400 people live here, but thats a lot bigger than some of those other burgs we passed throught. This is also a center for wind turbines – we read there are 300 of them, which generate enough electricity for 110,000 homes per year. As there sure arent that many people here, guess they ship it off somewhere else. The biggest city we
It was interesting to see how the topography changed, and how it seemed to get less dry and more green as we drive northeast. There were even a few ponds closer to here.
Seymour was virtually closed up on Monday – reminded us of the daytrip on the Chunnel from UK to France we took with Bob and Rosemary once – when we found out that France closes on Mondays too. But we found a real casual Mom&Pop restaurant that was quite tasty.
