SRT25 - Day 4
Summer 2025 Road Trip
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
This morning we’re at our first National Park.
https://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm
Bones: Yippee! I love exploring caves. Did you know that caves breathe? It’s true, they do.
The temperature in a deep cave is usually around 58 degrees. When the outside air temperature is colder than the inside cave temperature, the cold air will sink into the bottom of the cave and warm air from the cave will rise and follow the cave ceiling upwards until it reaches the surface. This natural cycle of exchanging cold and hot air is known as the cave's breathing cycle.
Bones: Caves are really cool.
Carlsbad Caverns has some beautiful Stalactites, Stalagmites and Columns. Stalactites grow down from the cave ceiling, while stalagmites grow up from the cave floor. It’s easy to remember which is which: Stalactites have a "T" for top and stalagmites have a "G" for ground. And Columns are when the Stalactites and the Stalagmites grow until they meet together to form a pillar that reaches from the floor to the ceiling.
Bones: This is Cave Bacon. Boy, I would really like some real bacon right now.
This formation is a type of flowstone, a mineral formation that looks like bacon due to its thin, ribbony shape and streaky appearance. It's created when water slowly drips down a cave's overhanging wall, leaving mineral deposits over time. The result is a long, thin sheet of calcite with undulations that resemble bacon slices. Variations in the cave water's chemicals can create colored stripes that look like alternating bands of fat and meat.
Bones: Wow, that looks like hundreds of soda straws
Very good Bones, I’ll have to give you some M&Ms when we get back to the truck. This type of formation is a speleothem that is in the form of a hollow mineral cylindrical tube. Also known as a Cave Soda Straw.
Bones: The Big Room is humongous! I bet you could fly a helicopter in here!
Bones is right to say that the Big Room is humongous. It’s the largest readily accessible cave chamber in North America. It’s almost 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide and 255 feet at its highest point. It’s also 750 feet below the surface.
From Carlsbad Caverns we headed north to Roswell. Just outside of town, we helped a farmer give some green guys in a flying saucer, a jump start.
Bones: I knew aliens were real. I just knew it.
Once we made it to Roswell we just had to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center.
https://www.roswellufomuseum.com/
For those who are interested. Roswell is believed to be the site of a UFO crash landing in 1947. Or it could have been the crash landing of a weather balloon. I’ll let you decide which side of the debate you want to believe. Either way, if you’re in Roswell, you’re going to have to explore this unique experience.
Spent the night in Portales, NM