Roswell and Carlsbad

Roswell is pretty much what I was expecting it to be: a small town capitalizing on the fact that it was near some strange events in the 1940s. Oh, and as I discovered while approaching the town, Roswell is also the self-proclaimed "Dairy Capital of the Southwest." The town has a few nice touches, like alien eye'd lampposts, but for the most part it doesn't look like anything has been updated since the 1970s. Even the "official" Roswell alien museum and research center is little more than a collection of old newspaper clippings and cheesy props. But it was a fun stop and walking around town was better than admiring the big-city "charm" of Albuquerque.

After a few days of motel living I was determined to find a place to camp out for the evening. So on my way to Carlsbad I pulled into a little state park and set up for the evening. Things were looking good: the sun was shining, I was set up at a lake side site, and I was ready for a relaxing evening outside.

Things went well enough until around 2:00am when I was jolted awake by what felt like 4 men attempting to pull my tent over. The sunny evening had turned into a brutally windy night. As I lay in my sleeping bag attempting to hold the tent in one piece, I noticed the right side of my tent was lighting up: lightning was coming. Despite the strong winds the lightning moved in slowly. It finally settled in overhead for the night around 2:30am. Bolts were easily going off every 2 to 3 seconds; the sky was so bright that I had to put my pillow over my eyes to try and get some sleep.

Of course, shortly after the lightning the skies opened up and my tent was pelted by rain. At this point there was no way I could sleep; all I could do was lie around and wait for the storm to end... Which it didn't. Around 8:00am the rain finally subsided enough for me to venture out of the tent. Everything was soaked but I managed to get packed up and jumped into my car in about 5 minutes. I drove into Carlsbad where I was introduced to the flash floods of southern New Mexico. The streets were covered in 1 to 2 feet of water. I was afraid to keep going through town, but more afraid to stop, worried that I might flood something if I spent too much time in the water. Turning on the radio confirmed it: nearly all of southern New Mexico was under a flood watch. Fortunately I made it through town and down to the Carlsbad caverns without any major hitches.

With that excitement out of the way I was free to explore the Carlsbad caverns for the day. The caverns are spectacular. And, of course, taking pictures in the dark doesn't do much good, but I still took a bunch. The highlight of the trip was a ranger guided tour through the King's Palace. At one point we turn off all the lights to experience "absolute" darkness. I thought it was even cooler when we turned off everything but his single candle lantern. With just one lantern lit you get a sense as to what the caves looked like to the original explorers. It was hauntingly relaxing to only be able to see a few feet. Stalagmites, stalactites, and columns appeared and disappeared as he waved his lantern around.

After the Carlsbad caverns I was planning on staying at the nearby Guadalupe National Park for another day, but the floods, rain, and wind caused me to make a bee-line for El Paso. I'm going to find sun at some point in this trip!