Saturday June 02, 2007 Whites City, NM

Spent the night in Ozona, TX at the best Best Western that I’ve been to so far. There is really no reason for Ozona to exist other than oil. It is out in the middle of nowhere. I see west Texas not only has oil for energy, but also plenty of wind. Lots of windmills. Left about 6:45, realizing that I gain an hour going to NM. Nothing but straight roads for as far as the eye can see. It almost makes you worry about breaking down, because nobody travels these roads. All I saw were cows and oil rigs (and one coyote). Got to Carlsbad Caverns before 11:00 and spent all day there except to go back and check in to the motel. I originally went to see the flight of the bats in the evening but I’m glad I did the whole tour. There are no words to describe what a magnificent sight it is at 750 feet below the ground. The first portion of the self guided tour takes you 1 ½ miles to get to the bottom with a series of switchbacks that will mess up your feet and knees if you don’t take it slow. When you first start out, and look down, you think – WOW – that’s a long way down. When you get to that point, you have that far to go again, and then again. After that, there is another 1 ½ mile tour. Then later, I took a special pay extra tour that took you down deeper and saw even more spectacular formations. If the canyon is “grand”, then this should be the “grander” caverns. Really amazing.
As I was waiting for the bats to take off, I ran into another guy that had just finished the 4corners tour and he was heading back home to Utah. I told him that I would see him at the banquet next year. He was riding a BMW GS and he took the FAR northern route – all the way up to Jasper BC, and across northern Canada, then down to Maine.