July showers

We woke up this morning at 6:30 with the sun, ate breakfast, and headed out to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We went for a four hour hike, and we felt kind of nerdy with our camelback packs, nerdy hats, etc. Everything we read was warning us about the heat and the sun. Right before you get on the trail, there is a little exhibit hall where it warns you about dangers of hiking. Someone had actually added exclamation points to the line where it said “Sun”. Beware, SUN!!!!

Thank goodness we came prepared, because it was certainly very HOT. It's that weird "dry heat" you hear about where you don't really sweat, but you are actually dying of heat exhaustion and you don’t even realize it. We hiked for a few hours into the mountains, had a picnic lunch with the remaining rolls from Odessa, and hiked back to our car (well, our car/home). We then went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which blew us away. It was amazing, as long as you didn’t allow yourself to think about the fact that you were 750 feet below a mountain in a cave. What is preventing the cave from collapsing? After we left the park, we both looked at each other and blurted out all of the things we were really thinking when we were inside – “What if there is an earthquake? What if this cave fills with water?” Kind of creepy.

We took over 100 amazing pictures today. You may be wondering why we aren’t posting any, and that is where we will shift the story toward the bad news of today. We are currently hiding out in our tent, and Robbie is holding a flashlight to deter bugs from the light of the computer screen. We have our camera in the tent, but the freaking camera cord is 50 feet away in the car, and we are sick of bugs and creepy night desert things so we are refusing to go and get it. Anyway, here is what went wrong today:

1. Our fancy cooler is not so fancy. We spent weeks picking out the perfect cooler. We didn’t want one too large or too small. It couldn’t have wheels, because that would provide an awkward size and shape for the trunk space-saving situation. It had to be a cool, ourdoorsy color. We selected the perfect cooler: Green, rectangle-y, and sort of retro looking. We noticed a small puddle leaking around the cooler yesterday, and lo and behold the water valve is leaking. Fantastic. We tried to fix it with duct tape but it’s leaking through the duct tape. Dick’s sporting goods: 1. Faiths: 0

2. Our lives pretty much depend on the little power adapter/cigarette lighter thing in Robbie’s car. We have a GPS, Ipod player, and power adapter for laptops/cell phones/etc that are all powered through the car adapter. The car adapter decided to stop working today. Honda dealer: 1. Faiths: 0

3. We decided this morning that we didn’t need to zip up the tent windows. After all, we are in the DESERT, and when does it rain in the DESERT? Besides, it’s hot and the tent will be 1200 degrees by the time we get back. Well..we were sitting at Carlsbad Caverns watching the bats fly out at dusk (which was really cool), and we noticed some mysteriously dark and menacing clouds to the north (AKA our campsite). We were around 40 miles from our campsite at that time, and all we could picture were our sleeping bags, pillows, and tent soaking through. How do you dry all of that crap, especially when you want to roll it up and leave in the morning? Our internal GPS-es were all out of whack, so we weren’t exactly sure which direction the campsite was as we left the park. As we headed back toward Carlsbad (and toward our camp), the rain increased steadily and we even saw some lightning. Carlsbad is apparently not equipped to handle strange, mysterious liquid precipitation falling from the sky because every single intersection was flooded. Fantastic. This whole trip caused a lot of mental anguish and stress as we wondered where (and on what) we would be sleeping tonight. Luckily, as we pulled into the campsite, the clouds parted, the angels started singing, and the roadrunners waved a friendly hello. Welcome home, they shouted, welcome home to your dry campground. Anyway, our stuff is dry, which is a bright spot in the day. But it was still stressful. Lesson learned: Zip up the stupid tent.

4. Showering/Going to the bathroom: Why is this stressful, you might be asking yourself? Well, the night before, we were treated to a very large, very scary, and very hungry and hairy tarantula. This would be somewhat exciting if it wasn’t for the fact that he was walking around the sidewalk surrounding the restrooms. A couple of hours later, he could still be found WALKING ON THE WALLS next to the restroom doors. There is just something unnerving about a large man-eating spider stalking around the shower room when your eyes are closed to avoid the burning of shampoo, not to mention the fact that one of your hands is constantly holding down the shower button to keep a continuous stream of cool water running. And we saw a skunk tonight, which is just creepy. And a big snake on the road. Basically, our campground is kind of scary at night (which leads back to the fact that we want to hide out in our tent and NOT get the camera cord).

Anyway, today actually was amazing. The national parks were fantastic, and our campsite is cozy despite the evening wildlife. We did have a few speed bumps today, though, and we thought you might get a kick out of them. We’ll post our awesome mountain and cave pictures tomorrow (if we can figure out a way to charge my computer. Good times.)

We are leaving Carlsbad tomorrow and heading somewhere, but we’re not really sure where yet. Maybe Roswell or White Sands? I guess we’ll see which way the wind is blowing.