Brantley Lake and the Caverns

Our next spot was Brantley Lake, which we had been to a few years back. We settled in a nice electric site with great view of the lake.Not such great weather though. We knew that winds and cold weather were in store and the weather people were, unfortunately, correct. We even had to pull in the slides part of the first few days as the wind was blowing so hard. Well, with bad weather, we headed for Walmart for some shopping, which included the new ipad that just came out. We had been thinking of getting one for awhile and had decided to wait until the new one came out So far, we really like it. I am still blogging on my computer, at least for now. It looks like I need to down load some apps in order to blog easily on the ipad.

 Like last time we were here, we decided to go to the Carlsbad Caverns, which is about an hour drive from the campground. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is in the Guadalupe Mountains and the drive up the Walnut Canyon Desert Drive goes through some dramatic desert views . There are a number of trails. However, the Caverns are the star attraction there. The Caverns began 250 million years ago. Over 500,000 years ago is when the "decorations", which make the caves so special, started forming. The cave was literally created and decorated, drop by drop and continues to change, slowly over the years. There are 3 tours to explore the hugh caves. One is the natural entrance route, which is self guided(you can buy a tape and there are numbers areas in the cave where you can stop and listen to information on that area of the cave). You walk down 750 feet into the earth and descend down some steep and narrow pathways. This is the way people originally accessed the caves. It is about a mile and takes about 1 1/2 hours.We took that way last time we were here.  There is also a Kings Palace tour, also a mile around that room and ranger guided and another self guided tour in the Big Room, which is the one we took this time. On the other tour we took, you walk down but tale an elevator back up. The tour this time is by elevator both down and back up. This way, you have more time to explore the Big Room, which is 8.2 acres and about a mile in a circular route The place is just amazing. I'll let the pictures tell the story