carlsbad day two!!

today was such a fun day! new mexico is an hour behind san antonio which probably explains why we keep waking up so early. today we got up and went to the lake again after breakfast. we were the only ones there and it was so relaxing. my back has been bothering me a lot since i have been pregnant so a little over a month ago i started going to physical therapy. my therapist really encourages me to swim as much as possible so we have been doing just that. it feels so good to stretch underwater and be weightless. i 'water jog' and doggy paddle around a lot which is a bit of a work out, haha. 

 on our way to the caverns we stopped at a gift shop for some funny pics.

after that we went to the caverns for our lantern lit left hand tunnel tour!!!!

seeing the caverns and formations lit by only candlelight was a great experience. i kept getting the feeling that we were underwater. it looked so much like ariel's dads house on the little mermaid and the flickering candles made it look like water on the ceiling. we blew out the candles and sat in the quiet darkness again on this tour and luckily everyone behaved themselves. 

 the last thing we did underground was walk around the big room which was amazing!!! big does not begin to describe this cave, it was unbelievably large! i wish pictures depicted it better because there were some really cool formations. you'll just have to take our word for it and maybe a trip down here yourselves.

 behind the park ranger is the 'natural entrance' to the caverns, aka where the tens of thousands of bats fly out every night. we waited until dusk then saw them all circling the entrance and flying off into the distance. we weren't allowed to take photos because i guess our electronics give off noise when they're on and these are country bats not city bats. (so the ranger said)
this was our last day at carlsbad national park and we had soooo muchhhh funnnn. i am just so grateful to be spending non-stop time with jon.
tomorrow we are headed to Guadeloupe mountains national park!

Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

 yesterday jon and i finally headed out of san antonio to new mexico! we've been planning this trip for over six months and we are so excited that it has arrived!!

 we made sure to stop and walk around plenty of times on the way and it still only took us about 6 hours to get to carlsbad! here is jon in sonora, texas...a weird tiny town we walked around in...

 made it to the hotel!!

 after checking in, we went to go get some recommended hamburgers at Happy's. we saw this "loving" street sign and had to stop. we always say "loving" to each other and randomly text each other that simple word....hahaha. 

 happy's was eclectic....

27 weeks 5 days.

 i had forgotten that jon saw this street while he drove through here in may. he surprised me! so cool! there is also a really great ice cream shop on canal street and hagerman street...so we got ice cream too.

 today we woke up early from excitement and got a good start on the day. jon wanted to take this picture because two years ago we were on our way to st. george with our family and we took a picture of him like this with a buck. here is version 2.0. 

(please note jon's birthday hiking boots. he's now a legit hiker)

 so excited to be here! the weather above ground was really nice, not nearly as hot as it is in san antonio.

 we had a tour at 10:30am and didn't begin our decent through the "natural entrance" until 9:45am. they recommend giving yourself an hour and fifteen to get to the bottom, but we did it in about 35. we would not recommend rushing the whole way down! we were so stressed that we were going to miss the tour, but it was a cool hike. we are going to do it again tomorrow at a slow pace so we can stop and see the formations.

 once we cooled off from running down into the cave (750 feet underground), it got cold! it is a constant 56 degrees year round.

 it is really difficult to capture the beauty underground. it is almost pointless to take photos because they don't portray what you are really seeing at all. just take our word for it that the caverns are enormous beyond belief and beautiful. we did the King's Palace tour which took us through three or four very large rooms. at one point the tour guide turned off all the lights and we sat in total and utter darkness. she asked for complete silence as well. almost as soon as we all quieted, someone decided to...pass gas. i felt like a teenager in church again trying desperately not to laugh throughout the entire prayer. it was so ridiculous, but jon and i have been laughing all day about it. the nerve of some people.

 after the tour we went on a 9 mile scenic drive and saw these big horned sheep! at first i thought they were iron statues like we saw in anza borrego, but they were the real deal!! it was so cute seeing them move in their little pack away from us and our car!

look at this funny veggie jon found growing out in the wild! he thinks it is some sort of squash. 

the scenic drive was really beautiful, but we were both so tired for some reason! the gravel road was putting us both to sleep. it took everything in us to get out and take these photos, hahaha. 

we came home and napped and then went to the pecos river to swim around only because the pool at our hotel was broken! it turned out to be pretty nice and the temperature wasn't bad so we will probably go back tomorrow. for dinner jon had a salad and i ate 9 bagel bites.
we are having tons of fun, i just love being together.