Minecraft IRL

Today we experienced some difficulty in the morning. Our car battery had died at some point. Luckily the people at KOA were very nice and had someone jump us. We packed up as quick as we could. The new tent was really nice, and cheap. Our initial goal was to reach Carlsbad Caverns by 10 so we could catch a tour but that was no longer really an option. We stopped in Carlsbad and bought a new battery after having it tested. There was a dead cell even though Tim had checked it just a week before. All in all we both felt safer with the new battery. Also Tim bought a sweet Smith and Wesson knife. Oh, and I love my hatchet, it's super useful. The knife end for cutting, the back of the hatchet as a hammer. Carlsbad was a nice city but we didn't spend a lot of time there.

We arrived at the Caverns with no further delays. There was a beautiful road through an all new terrain type that reminded me of the video game Red Dead Redemption. Is it bad that nature reminds me of video games and not the other way around? We entered the cavern facility and went to the help desk. We were told that we could do a self guided tour or catch a 2pm guided tour. We decided that the self guided would be more worth our time. After a trip back to the car to have a sandwich and grab a flashlight we headed into the caves. (We forgot the flashlight!)

The entrance to the caverns was non-assuming until your right on it. Rounding a bend we found ourselves staring down into the depths of the Earth. Its hard to find the right words to describe it and the pictures will definitely not do it justice. It was amazing, and that's just the entrance. It was probably at least 100 feet tall. There is a winding path going down into the cave which doubles back under the entrance and deeper into the earth. For those of you that play minecraft, its just like stumbling across one of those caves and just exploring where it goes. They have over 1000 lights and concealed electrical cords lighting the inside of the caverns. Every time we passed through a tight tunnel it would open up into something massive and new. Every new angle was a fantastic new sight. One early cavern had a gargantuan boulder, really really massive, that had fallen off of the ceiling hundreds of years ago. To have been there to see it fall would have been amazing.

After a long walk down into the cave, we reached an underground restaurant with a restroom. This is 750 feet below the Earth by the way. Seeing a fully working restroom cut into the rock bed was like a secret villain base from a James Bond movie. The Underground gift shop reminded me eerily of the one in Jurassic Park. I half expected T-Rex to round the corner. From the restaurant there was another mile or so long hike to what they call the big room. The rangers had assured us that this was the best part and they were right. There are various structures of limestone which eventually opens up into the biggest cavern yet. It was probably the bigest enclosed space I had ever been in. They had stone seats carved out and it seemed the perfect place for an evil cult to hold rituals. The cavern was very cathedral like. At the very top, impossibly high, was a rope dangling that boggled my mind. I couldn't fathom how they would have gotten it up there. A Ranger later told me that they had used a helium balloon to get the rope up there but that still didn't make sense to me. How did they get the rope to latch on to anything? Apparently they did, and after climbing it, discovered 700 more feet of cave up there!

From this massive cavern there was a rope ladder leading to lower cave which opened up further and disappeared in darkness. This area they had preserved in its original state. No one save for the initial explorers from National Geographic can or has gone down there since, although I would love to explore these caves. I've explored caves on my own before but nothing like this. I'm jealous of the original explorers. On the opposite end of the Big Cave was a hole that they called the Bottomless Pit which was disappointingly bottomed. Apparently this deep in the earth, bats used to live. The rocks were still covered in guano.

The caverns formed thousands of years ago when the surrounding area was supposedly touching water. The acidic water corroded away the limestone and as it drained away, these massive caves were left behind. Water still drips from the surface. Tim and I were both hit at times by falling drops. Words can't do the caverns justice. This is definitely something that everyone should experience for themselves. We were blown away. After exploring we took an elevator from that underground restaurant all the way back to the surface. The windows revealed the rock bed elevator shaft around us while the elevator attendant told us that his job had “ups and downs” and something about taking limestone for “granite.” definitely reminded me of my dad. I do think being a ranger there would be awesome, especially if they got to go into unexplored portions of the caverns.

Back at the surface we ate at the Caverns restaurant and regrettably so. The food was crappy and overpriced and there were flies everywhere, including on and around our food. Yuck! But overlooking that we had a great time. Plus we totally caught a geodude in the cave. Woot!