Our day started by scarfing down some Mountain House biscuits & gravy alongside the BLM road and enjoying this sunrise.
Then we trotted back over the the Cavern for a guided tour. Whereas Mammoth Cave formed by water dissolving underground limestone to create channels, Carlsbad formed primarily by hydrogen sulfide dissolving limestone and creating cavities. Groundwater percolated through the limestone and deposited calcium carbonate (and some calcium sulfate, or gypsum) into dazzling formations on the cave surface over millions of years.
Here's a shot of a interesting scenario: a score of stalactites grew from the ceiling, but at some point a huge rumbling from an upper cave level caused the ceiling rock to break off, and new stalactites grew from the fresh ceiling.
As we finished the tour, we came upon some scientists sciencing! I was pretty excited and it took a lot of willpower to not pepper them with questions.
We head southwest from Carlsbad Caverns for about 30 min to briefly visit Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Okay to be honest, our greatest reasons for visiting were to stamp out National Park passport and because we had the Parks Pass.
We settled on taking a 1.2 mile walk that took us by a small ranch house (now a museum) that had been inhabited by folks trying to make something out of this nearly uninhabitable land.
A lizard friend skipped across our path! We are so winning at Pokemon Go.
We also saw a squash growing near the path. It surprised me because I don't usually associate squash a desert plant. A nice ranger at the visitor center told us that it is buffalo gourd and doesn't require much water. He also said it tastes terrible (so don't get any ideas).
But I'll tell you what tastes delicious: TACOS. After Guadalupe, we continued west toward El Paso and stopped for a very autentico lunch of tacos and quesadillas.
The route we chose took a circuitous route around El Paso so that we could drive along the Rio Grande and see the Mexico-US border. We saw a big wall with border patrol trucks periodically stationed along it.
As the road pulled away from the river, the path afforded more views of The Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez. Much of that city--at least from our zippy 75 mph viewpoint--looked similar to El Paso, but after the road turned north away from the Rio Grande, we passed a large area of slums on the Mexican side.
We soon entered New Mexico and enjoyed spotting one of the unique visual features of the area: large water tanks painted with murals. This one is NASA-themed, as it sat near the missile test range area. (Which is still active- twice a week or so they close down the area from traffic to conduct tests!)
From Las Cruces, we turned east and climed a pass through some desert hills. On the other side lay a huge basin where the missile test site and White Sands National Monument were situated. The missile site is a relatively new development; the white sands were 250 million years in the making. Large gypsum deposits formed in an ancient lake there and over the many years it turned to sand. This gypsum sand (calcium sulfate) is different from sand along the ocean, which is generally silicon dioxide (quartz).
As we came down into the basin, much of the land was fairly barren, but we eventually came upon some sand dunes. (And we also had to cross through another border patrol checkpoint [our second of the say]. Not sure why, as we were miles from the border. Perhaps the road passes by common routes for Mexican immigrants?)
After entering the park, we began an automobile tour among the sand dunes. After a half-mile or so, the pavement ended and we drove on compounded sand. I felt quite the dissonance of my senses, because it was hot outside but it looked like we were traveling through snow fields. Kinda like thinking you're about to eat an ice cream sundae but it turns out to be a pile of mashed potatoes.
The sand was surprisingly cool and pleasant to walk on- perhaps due to the water level that is perpetually just a few inches below the surface. This impression is in striking contrast to my memory from 1995, when we might as well have been on the surface of the sun. Whitney and I frolicked around for a bit, but then it started sprinkling. I'd seen videos of the sand shrimp that hatch in wet conditions and I wasn't gonna hang around to observe that phenomenon.
On our way out we saw folks sledding down the dunes. Again it was odd for me to see a winter activity in the summer, until I realized that sand sledding would be much less wet and cold than playing in the snow... sounds like a win-win to me!
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