Timezone Roulette

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We said Goodbye to El Paso today as we headed East. There were only 2 items on the agenda for today - Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The parks are only about 30 miles from each other so they are both doable in the same day.

There was not much to see on the route east for it was mostly just open flat barren land. The cactus trees and bushes started to diminish and any greenery was mainly small brush and grasses. No trees, no buildings, no houses, just land. We drove through a small area known as the salt flats. It was a “shining white expanse of salt-covered earth”. It was an unexpected sight in that desert land. We took in that quick view from the car as we drove by.

Soon we were approaching the Guadalupe Mountains. You could see them before you got to them for they were a bit different than our scenery from the past 200 miles. We stopped at the park visitor center to get a map of the park and determine which area to try and see. It became evident that this park had very little public access area unless you were up to hiking 10 to 20 miles, which we were not. In fact it only had one road in the park aside from the pass over the mountain which was the main highway. So we took that one road to the end and hiked a nature trail which was a little over a mile long. That was long enough for us for it was still hot, still in the desert, and in the mountains so it was not flat. The warnings signs for snakes were still prevalent so I was a little paranoid of walking up on one. I was watching every step and listening to every noise, but all the noises were just loud bugs thank goodness.

After our short hike, we headed out of the park and towards Carlsbad. We had a hard time determining the actual time for that area seemed to be a gray area in terms of time zones. The El Paso area was on mountain time while the remainder of Texas was on central time. Carlsbad is in New Mexico and was on mountain time. We realized that our car was still set to Arizona time. We changed the car to auto time so that it would adjust to the area we were in. Well then the car kept changing and our phones kept changing back and forth between the different time zones. Fortunately my dial watch does not automatically change so I was able to determine the eastern time. Technology is not always smart. The actual time did not really matter except we knew we had to be in the cavern by 2pm for that was the latest time they took people down to view the caverns. So we did not want to miss that.

After a while, all of our devices settled down and got back in sync on mountain time making it clear we had plenty of time to see the cavern. So we stopped at the Cactus Cafe outside the entrance to the park for lunch. It was the only option for a meal, so it was an easy decision. The food was ok, nothing special. We then rode on in the park to the cavern entrance area and was a bit surprised to see so many cars there. The other areas we have visited on this trip had very few people and there has been very little traffic that it just caught up by surprise. It was not packed, but definitely more people than we have seen.

We went to the desk to get our tickets for the cave tour. We had our park pass but I still expected to have to pay the fee for the cavern tour but to our delight we did not. We had the option of taking the stairs down via the original entrance, or the elevator. It was 800 feet down, so we took the elevator. 800 feet is a long way. The tour is actually a self guided tour so you can take as much time as you want. There were also a few route options to make it a longer or shorter visit. I thought it was very well laid out and enjoyed the self tour much more than other cave tours I had been on. Those that herd you through in groups, tell corny jokes, turn the lights off and have weird nicknames for the formations. This was much better. We took the long route which was probably around 1 1/2 to 2 miles long. It was beautiful and amazing to see the different kinds of formations. A different world down there.

After we finished viewing the underground world, we headed to Roswell, our stop for night. Since Roswell is well known for UFO sightings most of the businesses there have added that alien world to their decor/name/theme. Aliens were everywhere but all in fun. We received a recommendation for dinner from our hotel and enjoyed an authentic local Mexican meal at Antigua Cocina. I ordered Pollo de Chipotle (chicken in a creamy sauce with arroz and roasted corn) and Donald ordered Enchiladas de Pato (braised duck in a tomatillo Serrano sauce with beans and roasted corn rice). Both were delicious and we shared each other’s meal. Donald surprised me in getting that dish for he does not like to try new things. But sometimes new things turn out to be awesome. The only complaint of the meal was that the salsa was HOT. It was tasty but burned our mouths. So we grabbed some frozen custard at a nearby stand and ended our day on a sweet note.

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