"...How many wonders can one CAVERN hold"

Tuesday, January 26, we left Brantley Lake State Park at 6:42 a.m. We went to Carlsbad Caverns. When we got there we got four tickets to the King's Palace Tour. Grammy didn't want to go in the caverns. We start heading down, my brother starts limping, and so we slow down.

We finally get to the meeting place for the tour, and Jack and Pop decide not to go.  So they went to the restaurant/rest area/shop, and then they were going to head back up. Mom and I wait for the tour, and while we wait I do my junior park ranger packet. The King's Palace was so cool! It was gorgeous!!

The above was the King's chamber, then we moved on to the Queen's Chamber.

The Queen's Chamber also has drapes, and the drapes are so thin that light can shine through! We didn't think the light was strong enough to shine through solid rock! The flashlight is the square on the right of the below photo.

Then our tour guide takes us to another part of the chamber, and he turns off the lights. It is pitch black dark! To tell you the truth it helped to close your eyes. LOL!!! We also saw a rock that was pure calcite. It looked like ice cream, snow cream.

Meanwhile Jack and Pop did the entire Big Room Self-guided Tour. When we viewed the Big Room we took a short cut! We saw a lot of cool rocks that looked like things! Some examples: 

Lion's Tail

And a Bashful Elephant!

Before we headed up I was super duper hungry, so we went to the so-called restaurant which was pretty much a fridge with like seven sandwiches and a few other things.  So I picked a sandwich, and I usually don't eat sandwiches ever! But I was so hungry, and it was maybe the yummiest sandwich ever! Except for the fact something was crunchy, and I don't know if it was the bread or the cheese! 

So we start heading up, and I start singing songs in my head that have to do with getting up to the top. My first one is "Bet on it!" from  High School Musical 2.  It goes  "I'm not going to stop; not going to stop till I reach the top." We go farther, and I think of another one from Lion King, but instead of "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" I'm thinking oh I just can't wait to be out.  Another one from the Lion King was "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", but I was thinking I can't feel my legs right now. Then we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and through my head floats Tangled's "And at last I see the light." 

We get closer and I start singing "I'm almost there. I'm almost there. People down here can slow you down, but I almost there" from Princess and the Frog. 

Then, we made it.  We got out!

"We are the champions my friends." 

It was a blast, but Mom and I both decided we wouldn't do it again without a good reason. When we were climbing up it was so steep. It was EEEK!! On the bright side (Haha pun intended), our fit bit scores were awesome, 14,746 steps and 100 flights of stairs! So all in all it was so awesomely coolness! It was a great day! Now I wonder how many wonders can a bunch of caverns hold if one holds that many!

New Mexico Get Ready for R'ome

At 8:30 Sunday morning, January 24, we left Buck Creek RV Park.   We got on I-20 and just a little bit later we see this massive field of wind turbines. 

Then we start hearing noises coming coming from the belly of R'ome, the bottom storage space. The noises are loud, clanking, clattering.  It sounds as if something is bumping R'ome. At first we think it's probably just the wind against the RV, because the wind is pretty powerful today. It keeps getting worse, so we pull over and make sure all the doors are shut and locked. We get back on the road, but the noise keeps going on and on. Quickly, we stop again to check things out. Pop opens one of the storage compartment doors, and he thinks it was the fishing rods hitting the sides of the storage compartment. So he tries to get them out, and the hook of one of the lines gets caught on the carpet of the RV storage space. He tries to get it out but can't, because the space the rods were in stretches from one side of the RV to the other side and gets very narrow.  So he couldn't unhook the hook. My mom is like, "Well, let's get one of the kids in there," so I go into the belly of the RV and unhooked it from the carpet. Pop removes the hook.  To keep the fishing rods from knocking again we wrap them in towels. 

Well, while we were doing that a woman comes over with a card and asks if we need any help. We tell her, "no."  Not even five minutes later a guy pulls in and comes toward us with the same business card and a truck full of junk, if you ask me.  He starts talking to us. 

Grammy saw that the tip of one of his finger was off and asks him how it happened. Here's the story. He was a senior in high school and had taken a welding class, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.  He was using the grinder and someone came behind him and bumped him.  He ground the tip of his finger. He didn't take care of it, because he was busy with school.  It got infected, and they had to take it off.  

The fishing rods are secure, the story is told, and we start to leave.  He starts pointing at our tire like something is wrong, so Grammy gets out of the RV. She says she hears something, so he fixes our so called maybe needs to be repaired tire. We get on the road again and there are no strange noises.  We stop and find another cool mosaic in a rest area!

 

We stopped and my mom made me read a sign claiming if my aunt were here she would make us read it.

We also saw a bunch of flat land.

Today was a really big day for mom.  Now I don't know if any of you know this but she has a history of wrecking Grammy and Pop's cars. Her last wreck in their car she didn't swerve and a buck came charging at her. Insurance paid, because it was wildlife and not her swerving that caused the damage. So today she drove the RV for the first time. I wouldn't call it a really big accomplishment, because we were in the middle of Texas.  At this point there was little wind, no cars, and no curves. I could probably have done it. Still she made it, but we kept telling her if you see an animal just hit it. She missed two tumbleweeds.

A little while after Pop switched back into the driver's seat, and we drove into New Mexico!

We stopped at Brantley Lake State Park, and we took a short hike to the lake.

We have had so much fun, and it's only the third day!!

Day One and Two of Roaming the Range

Friday, January 22, was our first day on the road. The RV was parked at a Walmart where Pop who is my mom's dad stayed the night in the RV while the rest of us went to their house and slept. We took off at about 6 o'clock in the morning and made our first stop, Dunkin' Donuts!

 

We drove through a lot of snow, rain, and gunk. Pop drove the whole time, because my mom was too scared after seeing how much he had to fight with the wheel. 

Traveling in the RV is very cold especially if you sit by a window. One of the warmest places was in a rest area in Mississippi. Check out the cool mosaic!

A true Mississippian, Kris Savell, taught me how to say Mississippi correctly. When you are with people who are not familiar with it you pronounce it Miss-a-sip-ee, but when you are with people who you know know what you are talking about you pronounce it Miss-Sippie. Strange on my part but she knows what she is talking about.

We stopped for the night in Mississippi at a place called Askew's Landing. It was a little nerve rattling at first, because there was a rocky, muddy, bumpy dirt road and on either side a lake. The road was really tiny too. It had only enough room for one RV or camper at a time. Nevertheless, we got a spot and began to settle down for the night. We were a little worried at first, because the owner, who kinda looked like Dolly Parton, thought they were supposed to get one and a half inches of snow. We finished getting everything set up for the night and clearing out our bunks, so we could actually sleep in them.

Saturday, January 23, we left the campground at six o'clock, and we were relieved that there was no snow on the ground. Within thirty minutes we crossed the Mississippi River while I was sleeping or so I was told. Our first stop of the day was made at a massive Texas rest stop. There had to be at least a million brochures all organized by the different geographical sections of Texas. We grabbed a lot of them before getting back on the road, but first let me take a selfie, with the selfie stick!

I noticed that in Texas they like to put "Don't mess with Texas" everywhere from plastic bags to trash cans. Oh the things I've learned on the range.

After that we drove a long, long time, and while we were driving I saw my first Texas Longhorn, my first beavertail cactus, and a castle (actually I don't know what it was, but it had towers and parapets). We stopped at a place called Buck Creek RV Park. The road was not as bad as the first night but still bumpy, rocky and dirt. That was our first two days of living in R'ome!