I stopped nearby for a nice scenic shot.
This was the only time I set up the camera on the side of the road for a drive-by.
Carlsbad was only a couple bucks to get in. I opted to skip the long walk down into the cave - Took the elevator instead.
Here's the map. You can see the white line on the right is the elevator going 750 feet down. The red line is the path of my tour.
The elevator lets you out at the coolest gift shop in the 50 states.
A gift shop and dining hall hewn from solid rock, 750 feet beneath the earth!
This cave was completely different than the Caverns of Sonora. The scope was just incredible. This is one of the smaller areas of the cave. Note the people silhouetted in the lower right corner.
It was really dark, hard to take pictures. But try to imagine - These stalactites were between twenty and thirty feet long!
Everything was huge in this cave.
This is a formation called the "Rock of Ages."
You can see it better on the postcard. They must have hauled in some heavy duty lights to light up that thing.
The differences between Carlsbad and Sonora were like the differences in a portrait and a landscape.
Carlsbad was big and wide open and had lots of stuff - like this garden of soda straws - but you were stuck on a paved trail, far away from the sites.
In Sonora, you could go right up to stuff. Both were cool in totally different ways.
Even the bathrooms in Carlsbad had to be cut out of the rock.
Near the gift shop was a mailbox where you could send your postcards from 750 feet underground.
I sent postcards to everybody whose address I could remember, or had in my wallet.
A couple more squished pennies, and I was back on the road!