Sunday, August 9

Today, we went to visit Carlsbad Caverns. We started the day off with an 8:50 pancake breakfast in the campground's gathering area. They were really good pancakes, too. After breakfast, Philip and I played Scrabble for a bit while waiting to set off. Technically, Philip won, but I question his accusations that I didn't play fairly. Once we were ready to go, we set off, around 11:30. We drove for about 20 minutes or so, then we entered the park. We stopped at several places on the way to the visitor center, marveling at the beautiful terrain. When we got to the visitor center, we got tickets to take a self-guided tour of the caverns, then we went outside to eat our packed lunch. Once we got in the cave, we noticed one thing that set it aside from Mammoth Cave. It was far older, judging by the size of the stalactites and stalagmites. There were even columns, which must have taken hundreds of thousands of years to form. On top of that, they were 65 feet high and at least 8 feet wide! Anyway, as we walked around, we passed needlelike stalactites, hanging down from the ceiling of the cave like a thousand icicles, and bulky stalagmites, sticking up like trees on the cave floor. It is a very cool place, not to mention encompassing of a monstrous range of time. We wandered around the cave, looking into deep pits, high domes, and mirrorlike pools of frigid water. Nothing can disturb these pools with even the slightest ripple (aside from ignorant or malicious tourists, who throw coins into the pools without any regard as to the effect it has on the delicately balanced ecosystem), as the elements can't touch this environment, which lies 750 feet below the surface of the Earth. After viewing the cave at our leisure for a long while, we exited the caves to return to our campsite. When we got back to the surface, however, we found that the weather had changed. In the distance, a storm was brewing, and lightning flashed across the sky. That just goes to show how secluded the caves are from the elements. Anyway, we quickly got into the truck, and drove back. On the way back, we stopped to get groceries, and we also bought yet another movie: the fifth Harry Potter film. Aside from watching that this night, there's really nothing else to say. Therefore, tonights greeting will be "goodbye and good night" in . . . pig Latin: oodbye-gay and ood-gay ight-nay!