Day 3- June 24

Day Three: June 24 29,365 on the odometer

It is still quite hot. The tent held up fine through the winds and light rain, but we did not sleep well. It takes us about an hour to an hour and a half to break camp, pack the bikes, gear up and go. Still we are on the road in plenty of time to find breakfast.
Hwy 17 to Fort Davis is better than most of the roads we’ve traveled so far. There are at least some sweepers. We have a pretty good breakfast at The Chuckwagon restaurant, right across the street from the fort. We spend some time visiting the fort and pick up a National Park Pass and a Passport Stamp Book. We plan on visiting quite a few national parks, and it’ll be fun collecting the stamps from each one. The fort is still in decent shape, as it was still being used in some capacity or another long after the wild frontier days ended.
From there we head up 118 to the McDonald observatory. Now we’re starting to get some curves and elevation changes, but there’s still not much to look at. Not much at the observatory either. We don’t want to wait around for the next overpriced guided tour, so we explore the air conditioned gift shop for a bit, refill the water, take some pictures, and head back to the road. There is still no shortage of highway patrol cars. The buzz in the handlebars is bothering me so much I’m beginning to wonder if it will cause permanent nerve damage. I-10 and Hwy 54 are once again flat and uninteresting until we reach Guadalupe Mountains National Park. There are some curves and elevation changes here. Nice. The temperature also cools off slightly as we gain elevation. Still, the air conditioning in the visitors center is most welcome, and my butt is thankful to be out of the saddle.
There’s not much to do in the park beyond hiking, which we’re definitely not up for on this trip. We’ll have to come back here sometime when it is cooler and we have some time to explore The visitor’s center has lots to look at though, and is pretty informative. It is so nice, we accidentally leave the passport stamp book there when we get it stamped. Oops again. From now on we will have to stamp my journal instead. Every day I am putting notes about our trip in the journal, so that one day I can write this book. We cool off, refill the water, and are back on our way to Carlsbad Caverns, our destination for the day.
We find road construction as we near White City, gateway to Carlsbad Caverns and our intended destination. We find no lodging available. The “town” seems to be in a significant state of decline and mismanagement; some of the structures appear uninhabitable. The open hotels are booked full, I’m guessing with highway construction crews. We’ll have to find lodging in Carlsbad itself – thirty miles away. We still have plenty of time before nightfall, so we head into the park anyway.
The park is also under construction, so there is no real visitor center. Everything is in portable buildings. Except the cave of course. It is too late to go exploring that today, but the timing is just right to see the bats that make this place famous. The hike to the big hole is easy and somewhat scenic. Lots of local flora have been planted, and I start pointing out things to Ceci. I can still remember a lot of what I learned twenty years ago in a college class about desert flora and fauna. We take some interest watching lizards scamper here and there. In a brushy ditch I spot a nice sized grey fox, but it disappears before Ceci can see it or snap a picture. She is taking lots of pictures.
Arriving at the hole we find lots of swallows flying around. They kind of look like bats, but the show hasn’t started yet. We find a seat and wait. The bats do not disappoint. As the sun begins to set they come out in swirling waves. Millions of them. They leave as clouds of hungry flying rodents. Good hunting fellows; every bug you eat is one I don’t have to clean off my face shield.
It is dark when we get to Carlsbad and check in at the somewhat overpriced Continental Inn. Lots of stops today held us down to only 241 miles for the day.