Day Three

Day Three ~ Our first stop today was Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.  It was an EXTREMELY boring scenery drive from Fort Stockton to Carlsbad, so we busted out the Road trip game and played on the way.  We had a quarter of a tank (100 miles) and Mike was getting worried about finding civilization and a GAS station.  No worries...we made it. :-) We got in line to get our tickets and were pleasantly surprised that it was only going to cost $12 for us to explore the Caverns. (kids got in free).  Much nicer than the amount we had spent yesterday at Seaworld... WOW... Just WOW.  We decided on the elevator route which took us down 750ft in about a minute.  Once we got our ears adjusted, we headed out with our audio tour guide.  Ashlyn was very interested in the audio part of the tour and it was hard to pry the box from her hands.  She thought it looked like a phone and is very obsessed with phones these days.  Brooke said she didn't want to listen anyway. Lol.  At least she is honest.  We trekked over a mile looking at all the awesome formations.  Stalactites, stalagmites, popcorn, draperies & columns.  Let's just say Brooke wasn't impressed and by the end was cold and tired of walking.  Mike was having issues with the drops into the "bottomless pits".  He is petrified him or the kids falling over.  Anyway, We all made it out safe and headed off to Whitesands National Monument.  We got to the park at about 5:30pm which was perfect time of day because it was cooling down a bit.  We went to the gift shop and bought sleds and 2 bottles of water per person only because we were only buying one and the clerk was very panicked and said we needed at least a gallon per person.  I got kind of nervous and asked her how long was it gonna take?  She said she had went out earlier and drank a gallon in a hour. WHAT?? That is borderline water poisoning! LOL.  I sit here tonight still drinking our water purchase from the park.  We were pleasantly surprised again at the park entrance with it only costing $6 to get in, again kids were free.  We found the perfect dune and Mike waxed their sleds and they were off.  It was such a beautiful place to be with the dunes going as far as the eye could see.  It was neat also because the sand was not hot at all.  We played until 7pm then set off looking for somewhere to take our daddy for dinner on Father's Day.  We found the nicest steak house not far down the road and had one of the best steaks I have ever had.  We wanted to get as close to Albuquerque tonight as we could but with it being 3 1/2 hours from White Sands and there being a ton of road construction, we only made it to Socorro, which is about an hour or so out of Albuquerque.