Back in the Carlsbad Caverns

We couldn't help ourselves, we had to go back inside the caves today. We walked down inside the main entrance instead of using the elevator. It was over a mile down, and we went down 850 feet to the Kings Palace. We toured with a Ranger through the Kings and Queens Rooms, the most beautiful part of the cave.

We were inside the cave from 8:30 this morning until almost 2:00 pm. It was awesome.

More pictures inside the cave.


In just a few thousand years these two may hook up.

Can you see the "Bashful Elephant"? He is faacing the wall, but you can see his rump, tail and hind legs. Of the 2 white bumps, the elephant is on the right.

On our travels westward today we stopped at Guadalupe National Park and checked out "El Capitan".

We found a tiny little LDS branch in the town we stayed in last night. There were only 5 or 6 small families, the missionaries, and us. Really a friendly branch. We loved it.
Then we went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. This is the natural entrance to the cave. At dusk we watched about a million bats fly out of here so thick it looked like smoke rising up into the sky. Once the bats start flying out of the cave, Park Rangers would not allow any electronic devices or cameras because of it interfering with the sonar navigation systems of bats. (The bats are protected-it's a National Park.)

Click on this picture if you can't read it. This cave isn't as big as Mammoth, but it is more beautiful. This is our favorite cave so far. The formations are so spectacular and massive, we were awe struck.


The camera just wouldn't take in the huge rooms with all the delicate formations.

Heading Back West

We drove through Dallas, Texas on a game day. Big mistake! Arkansas Razorback playing Texas A&M in the new Cowboys stadium.

The traffic was horrible. This makes the spaghetti bowl in Vegas look like rush hour traffic in Cedar City.

On the way to Mammoth Caves, we passed this clever fall decoration on a rural farm in Kentucky. Scenes like this make you stop and take a picture when you least expect to. That is the fun of a road trip.

Today we went on two tours of Mammoth caves, the largest caves in the world. Here are some of the pictures. None of the pictures in the large cavern rooms turned out well. Sorry.



What an amazing cave. Some of the cave passages were small and narrow,then opening into sometimes really large rooms.

This passage was called "Fat Mans Misery".

Cades Cove in the Smokeys

We wondered if Echo and Larry recognized this building? It is the Cades Cove visitors center. Very rustic.

On the grounds by the visitors center there are historical houses, barns, and Mill. This was a working mill. The water is turning the wheel.

Inside view of the Mill. See the bags of flour to the right of the picture? The park employee had ground that flour today.

We took the hike from the visitors center to Abrahm FAlls. We had the garmin watch, so we ended up walking almost 7 miles. Dale took this picture, but it was supposed to have the Falls in the background.

Ah, there's the Falls. Pretty aren't they.

The hike followed a little stream most of the way.

Some of the leaves were starting to change.

View of the Smokeys

Today we had snow on the top, with cold wind gusts and temperatures in the low 30's.

Dale and I walked a little on the Appalachain trail, just to say we did it.

The mill is in Pigeon Forge, a fun little town outside the Park. (Dolly Parton country).

We are staying in a town called Maggie Valley. The town is decorated in Fall pumpkins and scarecrows on bails of hay all up and down main street.

The Smokeys were one of the destinations we were most excited to see. We're Here!

We drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Spectacular drive!

We took a hike for a couple of miles up a trail, crosssing the stream on these little log bridges. Fun.

The Smokies are really beautiful.

Today we drove about 360 miles across the state of North Carolina. Yesterday we realized we were close to where our nephew Mark lived. What we saw today was Mark! He gave us a tour of his business. He was kind enough to spend the whole afternoon with us. We had a great time with him, and really enjoyed seeing family again and visiting with him. Mark went with us to dinner, and we had a taste of good southern cooking.

The past few days we have mentioned the flooding in Virginia and North Carolina. This is in NC, 2 days after the storm. It has dried up a lot since then. We drove through standing water on roads today in places.

Today we went to the "OBX" (outer banks of North Carolina). It is a narrow ridge of islands off the shore of NC, much of which is the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. This picture is of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. They call this America's lighthouse. It is the tallest on the East coast, so we climbed to the top of it (258 stairs, 200 feet in the air).Cool, huh?

The Atlantic looks murky compared to the Pacific, but it is warmer. The outer banks has beautiful beaches.

This was a new one for us. All the locals mounted their fishing poles upright on their trucks. Some were mounted like this on the front bumpers too. We'd never seen that before.

The Roanoke State Park boasts they have sand dunes 80 to 100 feet above sea level. Almost as high as the sand hill at Lake Powell. What do you think?

The Wright brothers were the first to fly an airplane at Kity Hawk, NC, on what is known as the outer banks.

If you strain your eyes hard enough you can see an old style sewing machine next to the man standing in the back of the picture. The plane was canvas sewn over the frame of the plane to keep it light. (not only pilots, but seamstresses too.)

Yorktown was the battle ground for two wars, Revolutionary and Civil Wars.


Colonel Williamsburg was really fun. People dresses in perod dress put on a great reinactment of the history that took place here. The entire town had historical buildings like ones that existed overe 200 years ago. Here you see the combined armies of Washington and the French army on thier way to Yorktown to fight the British.

We watched the cannons go off.

The man on the horse is Patrick Henry. The traitor is wearing a British uniform.

This woman was a wig maker using human hair, horse hair, and goat hair, for those funny wigs they had to wear.

Williamsburg was great. We loved all the old buildings.