Changed our pace yesterday. We went underground. Carlsbad Caverns are right down the road. So, off we went. No need to buy a ticket. My traveling companion has a lifetime pass. One price, free admission for four to all national parks. In we went. Took an elevator down 750 feet to the cavern. We could have walked but this was our hiking day off.

I’d always wanted to visit the Caverns, but never in any of our trips across the country as a child did our parents ever take us. They’re gone now and there’s no chance to ask why, but if I had to guess, I’d say my mother didn’t want to do anything that involved going underground. And this is under ground, way underground. And if looking at 250 million year old fossilized reefs is fun then looking at a four million year cave is equally fun because dripping water mixed with minerals does weird things in the dark.

We wanted to finish the day by going to Sitting Bull falls, but our trailer had a flat and it needed to be fixed. So, we jacked up the trailer, pulled off the tire, replaced it and got ready for the road. Remember, this was our day off and we didn’t want to be doing tire work today. We wanted to be hiking our legs off on some back country adventure. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Cheers!

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale