Back in 1999, when I was a young 11-year-old whippersnapper, my family took a monthlong road trip around the United States. Prior to the trip, we held a Family Council to vote on which National Parks we wanted to visit, and selected Carlsbad Caverns and Yellowstone. (Yellowstone would later turn into an absolute shitshow, but let’s not get into that here).

Going on a monthlong road trip in a van with seven children, is, needless to say, a terrible idea. My father was at the phase of his life where he regarded all music and radio as being of the Devil, so there was nothing to listen to but my baby sister Hannah cry hysterically, which she did for eight or nine hours a day. Rachel and I had thoughtfully picked out four or five books each to bring, read them all on Day 1, and spent the rest of the time being excruciatingly bored, re-reading the books, or making up stories together (this was very, very early on in my fledgling writing career).

Anyway, we finally got the Caverns:

I don’t remember a lot about the Caverns from that time, except that a) they were awesome, b) they were terrifying, and c) we got to eat lunch 700 feet below the surface. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to go back. I’ve also maintained a mild interest in caves – I love the Mines of Moria sequence in FoTR, and The Silver Chair, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I haven’t pursued much else, because most caving requires fitting yourself through tight places, and I’m not about that lifestyle. I’m claustrophobic, and if you asked me what the worst possible death would be, it would be “trapped underground in an enclosed space”. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, needless to say, gave me nightmares for years, and whenever I really feel like terrifying myself, I read about Ted the Caver or the Nutty Putty cave incident.

Luckily, Carlsbad Caverns (at least, the sections readily available for tourists) don’t have any small squeeze areas (the smallest are a bit smaller than an ordinary doorway).

It is a bit surreal, though. It’s on top of a small mountain, incredibly dry and hot, and then then there’s just this giant yawning mouth with a switchback of trails, descending into darkness. Luckily, due to COVID, they are limiting the number of people who can enter, and staggering entries, so I was almost entirely alone for the majority of my trip.

As you descend, the temperature cools, and the light fades.

It’s a deeply unsettling sensation. The temperature drops to 56 Fahrenheit, and it’s immediately humid, a stark difference from the desert floor above. As it grows darker and darker, it also gets more silent, except for the footsteps of tourists on the path. Sound carries well, but the park rangers are very insistent on telling everyone to shut the fuck up and speak only in whispers while you’re in the caverns so you don’t annoy everyone, and for the most part, people are compliant.

There’s lighting throughout the caverns, so you’re never really in total darkness, except for one stretch near the beginning where there is almost no light at all – you can see the glint off the handrail, but it’s so dark you can’t even see the ground or your feet, or how tall above you the roof is so whether or not you might bash your head – and also, this is one-way-only, you’re not allowed to just turn around and go back, so I paused for a moment to say “We now have but one choice. We must face the long dark of Carlsbad. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.” and then giggled for maybe ten minutes.

As to the caverns themselves, there’s not much else I can say about them. They are magnificent. They are also something where quite truly, pictures don’t do them justice. There’s a lot of great pictures of the caverns, but a two-dimensional image cannot give you the same feeling as being in a massive cavern the size of multiple football fields. If you like things, you will like the Caverns. Add them to your to-do list.

Not much else happened today. I did run into a couple who were somewhat lost in the Caverns and approached me for directions, apparently assuming that I knew more than they did with one trip I took 22 years ago. Which is weird, because back at the Meteor Crater I was also approached by someone asking me questions. Apparently I need to rethink my outfits, because people keep mistaking me for someone who knows things.

Next up: Texas