Yes we went back on Tuesday. On Monday we started down into the caverns at 12:30 and came out at 4:20. The bat flight program starts at 5:45 so we stayed and it was again amazing. The bats started to come out at 6:10 and they were still coming out when we left at 7:15, it was just to dark to see them. The ranger said it takes 2 1/2 to 4 hours for all the bats to come out 300,000 to 400,000 are here this year. Did you know you can see bats two miles away. They come out of the caverns in what looks like a flying tube extending out into the air and across the country side. You can actually see clouds of bats out at least 2 miles from the caverns and maybe further.
Tuesday we came back to spend more time in the caverns and to see the bat flight again. Jean got a big blister on Monday so I walked down the natural entrance by myself and Jean took the elevator down a hour after I started down. At home this morning when I set down to put my shoes on Hank stationed himself so I could not leave without letting him know I was leaving.
On Monday I took 700 pictures and Tuesday I got an additional 476.
This is one of the largest single features.
An amazing 62 feet high.
Few pictures of cavern features:
This one shows the some of the size of the caverns.
Looking across one of the rooms.
Ok, that’s enough. I still have 24 pictures I prepared to put into this post but I’ll control myself. Have a GREAT day.
A flower from the natural entrance.
The ranger said it is an hour trip to the bottom, we took 2 hours and enjoyed every minute of the trip down.
This is our view.
Here is today’s drive.
We are just north of Carlsbad, NM.
Their was a sign at the visitor’s center saying the campground was full. We drove into the campground to find a site and than went back to the main road to the dump station.
Tomorrow Sunday October 18, we are going to return to Brantley Lake SP, for several reasons.
The weather is going to turn bad late Tuesday, LOT of rain.
The classic Kid picture.
Not his original head stone put one that has been used for a long time. I has actually been stolen twice, thus the steel around it.
Part of the collection was a half dozen old vehicles, this is a 1950 pickup.
We visited 
Interesting day.
Campsite pictures, we are in site 5.
Here are some pictures of Eastern New Mexico’s fall bird, the wasp. The park ranger at Bottomless Lakes SP said they get a bunch of these every fall and we have had our share today.
These brass couplers will sure make getting water a lot easier. I’m sure I will enjoy them. Speaking of water, our drinking water is a lot better this year than what we had last fall. This year we are filtering the water through 3 filters before it gets to the holding tank and then once more at the kitchen faucet. The water in the bathroom sink is much much better than what we had last year. I am using a universal water filter right at the park water faucet, than a large 2 stage filter before it goes into the holding tank and than a universal filter at the drinking water tap at the kitchen sink. When we traveled down here for two weeks at a time we could get by with the bad taste for several days, however when we are here for 2 to 3 months at a time good tasting water becomes more important.
It is in one of the towns old and really cool homes, built in 1910 to 1912 it belonged to the White family until 1976 when it was given to the city. Most of the original photo collection has been moved to a new building next door. It does have some interesting bathroom sink fixtures.
Martha (our GPS) wanted me to turn down this dirt road that leads to Pecos just outside Roswell, NM.
Here’s a road view and you can see we looped around, drove into Roswell, turned right and followed the signs to the park.
Here is the aerial view of the same route.
This is the drive for today, I think it was 118 miles.
Guess who we saw today?
Think we’ll go north a ways and than head back west following the warm weather.
