CARLSBAD, NM,_We left here on Thursday morning and headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, just a 30 minute drive south. The pictures don’t do the Caverns justice.

You can walk down to the caverns from its natural opening or take an elevator down. Yes, an elevator. You can also take a ranger-guided tour of the caverns for a charge of $8 or be a cheapskate and do the self-guided tour for free. We took the . . .the self-guided tour 🤑.

Whichever tour you decide, you always need to book a reservation on the nps.org website, which is only $1 per person. In preparing for the hike, be sure to bring a small flashlight, even though the trails and cavern are well lit. Also bring a light jacket in that the temperature is always 56 degrees, plus good walking shoes.

​The hike takes up to 1 1/2 hours, but you can extend for an extra hour by touring the perimeter of the Great Room, an extra mile hike.

We recommend seeing the caverns. You will see many stalagmites and stalactites. Remember our elementary teaching? Stalactites hang tight to the ceiling while stalagmites might reach the ceiling.
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Upon leaving the park, we began our drive to Las Cruces, NM via El Paso and route 62. It's 138 miles with no gas stations, so gas up as you leave the national park.

For the next three hours, you have a beautiful view of the Guadalupe Mountains, but plenty of windshield time and plenty of time to your thoughts. Like, “Why haven’t geologists discovered a bald-headed Neanderthal man. There must of been some. The Bible references baldies from 3,000 years ago. I wonder if Neanderthals invented the combover?“ But I digress.

​On the drive down Route 62 we spotted in the distance a large expanse of white. Our first thoughts were it looked like the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. When we arrived, it was the Salt Dunes Basin -- 2,000 acres of salt and gypsum. If we had the time, we would have stopped for a hike and photos.

Upon arriving in Las Cruces, we checked Into our hotel and then off for a quick tour and dinner. We drove through New Mexico State University, an agricultural school, then a terrible rainstorm with hail came down on us, ending our evening.

Take care and as our friend Bijan says, “Don't just have a good day. Make it a good day.”

ON THE ROAD AGAIN ...Nothing to report exciting these last two days. A lot of windshield time.

We left Baton Rouge on Tuesday morning, July 26,  and continued our drive on interstate 10 to visit my sister in the Lake  Travis Texas, area. Nothing exciting to report during our Tuesday drive other then the 105 degree heat starting in Houston to Lake Travis. By the way, the Austin area is booming in residential construction.

Lots of windshield time makes you think -- like Interstate 10 runs coast to coast from Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles. A pretty impressive construction feat. Especially the interstate section over an extended swamp area of Louisiana called the Achafalaya Swamp Freeway. Also, as I planned our trip, it dawned on me the first three nights I-10 would take us to three state capitols; Tallahassee (Florida), Baton Rouge (Louisiana) and close to Austin (Texas)..

On Wednesday, as we left my sister's house early at 6:30 am, we traveled back to I-10 on Route 280 through Johnson City, TX, the hometown of President Lyndon Johnson,  and through Fredericksburg, TX, a cute town  of German heritage and worth the visit. Along this route there are too many wineries to list. Ann now has this are on a “To be returned” list so we can visit the wineries and Fredericksburg.

​Once leaving Fredericksburg, your drive time scenery doesn’t change as some of my photographs show. Hours upon hours of the same scenery which becomes mesmerizing and hallucinating. With the new Lane Assist system on new cars, you can actually take short naps on drives such as I-10 in West Texas. I came out of one of my hallucinating naps hearing my voice saying out loud, “Can I ride the pony Mommy? Can I?” (For the record this is all false).

By 5pm, we arrived in Carlsbad, NM for the evening. Convenient location for our visit tomorrow to Carlsbad Caverns Park, a 30-minute car ride away. More on this tomorrow. --MARTY

​Well our second day of travel involved driving through four states (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) and two time zones; Central Time and Twilight Zone. We arrived at our destination -- Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- around rush hour, which is always a well-planned, thrilling experience after driving driving 10 hours.

Upon arriving we still had enough energy and  daylight to see the the State Capitol building, 34 stories tall and the 7th tallest building in all of Louisiana, the Old State Capitol building which looks like a Disney castle, the state university LSU, and of course, the mighty Mississippi River. We had a wonderful good old Southern dinner of seafood gumbo, hushpuppies and po’ boy sandwich at local Parrains’s Seafood restaurant.