Thursday, April, 16

Cool in the morning with no wind.
We got up early and were on the road by 8:00. Drove to El Paso, Got gas and turned east on highway 62/180. The road went over some impressive mountains.

Patti got a picture of west El Paso on the way up.

We expected to be traveling over just flat prairie Going through Texas but there were lots of hills and even some mountains.
Of course there was some prairie too.
We went through the Guadalupe Mountains

into New Mexico and on to Carlsbad where we checked in at the Carlsbad RV park.
Arriving at 12:00 Just as the wind started blowing in earnest.
It is still blowing like stink and everything in “Plan B” has fine a coat of dust.
After lunch and a long break we went into town to check it out and got gas in the jeep. Then we drove to the Carlsbad caverns to see what the setup was. We found out that we could take the elevator into the cavern, do a self guided tour and spend as much time as we needed.
It was getting late, 4:00 and the cavern closes at 4:30 so we will go back tomorrow morning.
The bat’s aren’t flying right now because it is a little early in the year for them. The ranger said that he has seen some but the cold weather and high winds are keeping them inside We hope that maybe tomorrow evening the wind will stop and we will get a chance to see them.
I checked the GPS to see what kind of restaurants were available and found one called “The No Whiner Diner” so of course we had to check it out. Patti had a Chicken Fried Rib Eye steak and I had just a straight Rib Eye Steak. The food was good, there was plenty of it and it was reasonably priced.