Carlsbad, NM

We rolled in to Carlsbad, NM ahead of the rain. We had time to get set up, and truthfully we appreciated the rain. The Internet at the campground was very weak. Barbara was fit to be tied.

Most of the evening was spent on the phone with Dish Networks trying to get our service sorted out. We have “Distant Network Service” (DNS) rather than local network channels, which would require us to call in with our new address every time we changed locations. With DNS we get New York and Los Angeles network programming no matter where we are. This evening we were watching ABC New York. We were keeping up with DWTS and when it was over the New York feeds disappeared. Gone. I called Dish and spent nearly an hour and a half with several agents to no avail. They had a very poor understanding of the product and it drove me nuts. I finally gave up and we watched the LA feeds.

In the morning we drove to the caverns and were sorry to see that they suffered a severe fire last year. Much of the surrounding terrain was burned, but the service center was spared. One of the rangers said that they evacuated the cavern and service center in fifty minutes and had everyone off the mountain before the fire jumped the service road. Today new growth is evident, so the cycle continues.

Two years ago we walked into the cavern, but this time we took the elevator down so that we could see the portions of the cavern that we did not have time to by the time we walked in. If you have not been to the caverns you owe it to yourself to go. It is an amazing place.

We had time left in the afternoon and stopped by the Living Dessert Museum north of town. This is a sampling of dessert habitat containing animals that for the most part are rescue animals representative of the creatures found in the local desert. There were elk, bison and pronghorn on the larger side, and prairie dogs, cougar and wolves on the smaller end. The cougar, in particular, was gorgeous.