States of Emergency

The second evening in Santa Fe we watched a movie and went to bed early, as we were getting up at 7am to head down through New Mexico.  First "stop" was Roswell, where we found little other than tacky alien shops and scary looking people.  BUMMER!! We didn't even get out of the car, just kept on truckin' down to Carlsbad.  We passed the campground we were intending on staying at, though we realized it was about an hour away from the caverns and therefore too far out of the way to bother. 

 As we approached the Caverns, we found few cars leaving the park, which made the place a bit eerie, especially with the dreary skies. Once we parked, we were too late to take the self guided tour through the natural entrance, and consequently had to take the elevator 750' down.  The caves had a bit of a claustrophobic feel for Jen, but that subsided quickly.  The walk around the caverns took about an hour and a half.  The stalagmites and stalactites were amazing, and the whole place had an Indiana Jones-type feel to it.  It was hard to believe what it would have been like to wander through unassisted and without permanent lighting, constantly waiting for one of the nasty looking stalactites to fall a hundred feet down on top of you!!

Once we left the Caverns a decision had to be made...... find a campsite and bed down for the night, or head into Texas and embrace the inner cowboy!  We chose the latter, Yee-Haw, it turns out for the best too, as getting a chunk of Texas under our belt was definitely the best decision in retrospect.  We got as far as Big Springs, about 2 hours in, and we were inundated with rain the whole way.  Once we got into our dingy hotel we realized that our decision to skip Houston and New Orleans was for the best for sure.... Hurricane Ike was heading straight for Houston after breaching land in Galveston.  We decided to leave early in the a.m.

On the road at 7:30... not so fun but in 5 hrs we were flying by Dallas, listening to the news channel the entire way.  Turns out that Ike was hitting in Galveston at 1a.m. the next morning and a mandatory evac had been issued.  100 mph winds and a 50 foot surge before the eye hits... not good.  40% of the residents chose to stay and they were being told to write their Names and Social Security Numbers on their arm as staying meant "certain death".... scary stuff.  As we passed through Dallas they said it would be hitting there at the same time the next day, we were running 24hrs ahead of the storm all day. There was no time to stop and take in the sites, and we finally passed through the other side of Texas and into Louisiana 9 hrs after our day began.

Louisiana went by in the next 2 hrs, as Ike is 600 miles wide they are also going to be getting tropical storm weather so we pushed on, staying on the run!  Finally, 12hrs, 3 states and 785 mile later, we arrived at our hotel (Thanks Dad & Gret!) to relative safety.... although we are still in Mississippi!  The only disappointment being that after 4 grocery stores we found out that in Mississippi they can only sell beverages with 6% or less alcohol....... on that note, time to get back to the Heineken Lights.

Until next time........