Cross Country Road Trip- USA

5 in the morning...

We arrive into Carlsbad hungry, constipated, dirty and tired. We are eagerly looking forward to a hot shower and something that doesn't resemble our car seats to sleep in. We called ahead and made reservations for Quality Inn. The GPS told us we were at our final destination but all we saw were Comfort Inn, Motel 6, Best Western-- no Quality Inn in sight. We finally called the front desk and that's when they chose to inform us that the motel was now 'Ocotillo Inn'.

We ended up crashing at 5:30am, getting only 3 hours of sleep, and barely dragging our butts out of the bedbug-infested mattress for the lame breakfast at the motel. We knew we had to eat to gain energy for the long walk through the Carlsbad Caverns.

Some words of advice:

Bring lots of water and a sweater. The caves are freezing cold!

So basically, Jen and I have decided that the best way to teach our children about sex and STDs is by bringing them to visit this cave. Our reasoning behind the previous statement is evidenced in the photographs below.

...and yes, husbands stared admirably as their wives glared at us disapprovingly

So apparently, the story behind the discovery of these caverns began when some dirt was kicked by one Jim White down into some gaping hole. He dropped a rock into the hole and measured the distance of how far the rock had fallen. From there, he built a ladder made out of fencing wire and proceeded into what would be one of the biggest caverns ever found in the United States. He then took an oil lantern and continued exploring, marking the caves with soot as a 'trail' and eventually, persuaded the government to recognize and preserve this as a natural state park.

After touring the Natural Entrance and The Big Room, Jen and I headed for our tour of The King's Palace with our fabulous and funny ranger. He made us carry his smelly pail filled with snails, a sponge and a rubber duck. He kept chuckling at Jen and I and often checked on us to ask if we were enjoying ourselves.

As our guide was telling us the story of the time when Jim White's lantern gave out and all he had was one match left, a guy standing in front of us let a loud one rip.

Jen, me and the couple behind us started laughing. We had the 'church giggles'-- you know, where you're laughing so hard but trying to stifle the giggles behind your palms at the same time because you're in a quiet or pious surrounding.

Anyhow, this must've continued for about a minute when the culprit barked "Will whomever it is that keeps laughing please stop so I can hear what the guide is saying?!"

That only made us laugh louder and harder.