we are bat shirt crazy! (photos coming soon)

it takes us a long time to get out of Texas but we finally do and find out that New Mexico is "the land of enchantment". we drive into Carlsbad, New Mexico which is the largest small town we've seen in a while, although still extremely small. we set up our tent. this is our first time camping on the trip and this is also our first part without Erin. anyway, we set up the tent and then drive to get a completely mediocre meal at a close diner. then we go to see a drive-in movie, which was one of the things i really wanted to do on this trip. unfortunately, they only play terrible movies. our choices are something about spies with Ashton kutcher, Marmaduke and the a team. we decide to see the a team. it turns out that we can see the Marmaduke screen while the movie plays so i end up, for most of the time, just matching up the a team's voices with the talking dogs from the other screen. i think we were both glad we went.

the next morning we go to a zoo/botanical garden called "the living desert" which brings us all the way up this desert mountain. the view is breathtaking. in zoo we see only animals that you can actually find in Carlsbad. highlights include a roadrunner, a bobcat and a whole rattlesnake exhibit. there we also learn that tarantulas and scorpions live all over the desert. then we go to the caverns. i think we walk about four miles underground. it is very impressive and austere. afterwards i buy a bat shirt in the gift shop and we go back to the camp, which is a very good thing, because soon after it starts raining. this is sort of funny, in retrospect, because New Mexico advertises having 360 sunny days a year, but at the time we are just running around trying to rain proof our tent. we do a pretty good job and go to bed out of boredom pretty soon after.

the next morning we stop for breakfast and then head toward Albuquerque. we ran over a bunch of tarantulas which were trying to cross the road. We stop in Roswell on the way and go to the UFO museum, which is not as much fun as it seems. It was mostly all newspaper articles and photographs and there were very few photo opportunities. Then we get to the hotel in Albuquerque and realize we have no idea what to do here. We walk down to Central Avenue, also known as the historic route 66 to get some dinner. then again we don't know what to do. we go back to the hotel to do some research.

what we do today is we go down jemez mountain trail. we see an indian reservation, a memorial site which is actually the ruins of an old village and we see a waterfall with grottos and mountains and forests. then we go to aquarium, which includes manta rays and sharks and a whole bunch of jellyfish. we also walk around a very nice botanical garden. then we get dinner at a giant diner that is straight out of the seventies.