Everything's bigger in Texas

Tuesday June 25. Everything's bigger in Texas, including the expanses of road without service stops or exits to gas stations within a feasible driving distance when you're running out of gas. Colin and I found this out the hard way.

To alleviate your worries, we are presently safe and sound at Sarah and Mike's house in El Paso, Texas. (That's my sister and brother-in-law, for those of you who don't know.) It is SO NICE to be in a home, even if we're not staying long, and to be with family. It's hard to really get homesick when you're doing so much traveling and sightseeing in such a short period of time because  the constant stimulation and excitement doesn't allow you to dwell on sad feelings, but it's hard to be away from home and family. I hadn't seen my sister since the wedding last September, and that's a long time to go without seeing your first and longest-lasting best friend. Plus, she has dogs, and since I've been missing my Lucy so much, what better way to soothe my heart's ache for her than with a substitute furry companion or two? Also, Sarah and Mike have a washer and dryer.

Last night, Colin drove and drove and drove till we were almost in Carlsbad, New Mexico. I, being the excellent copilot I am, slept most of the way. After concluding that there weren't any easily accessible free camping spots along our route that we could stop at to break up the six-hour drive to the caverns, and after listening to Colin insist that he'd rather drive all the way to Carlsbad anyway so we could wake up and be the first patrons there, I must have fallen asleep. And it must have been a deep sleep, because I didn't wake up until Colin shook me when we were stopped somewhere in BLM desert lands and declared that we were sleeping in the car because he saw two rattlesnakes while attempting to find a place to set up the tent. (Arizona and New Mexico are full of BLM forest and deserts, which are federally owned by the Bureau of Land Management and mostly open to the public for primitive camping. We stayed on BLM lands near the Grand Canyon and in southern Utah near Arches and Canyonlands.)

We woke up with the sun the next morning, as has become the custom, and drove fifteen minutes (most of it bumping through the desert to get back to the highway) to Carlsbad Caverns. We were definitely the first to arrive. The gate was open, but the Visitor's Center and entrance to the caverns was not, so we napped a while longer in the car.

I woke up an hour and a half later feeling like I hadn't slept at all. Colin suggested I try one of the energy drinks we'd picked up in Denver, which he also indicated were to thank for getting us safely to our resting spot last night. I'm not a fan of energy drinks, much preferring my standard cup of coffee to get me going in the morning, but we had stopped at a 7-11 back in Denver and while Colin ran inside to get ice for our cooler, I chatted with the friendly girl sitting outside at a booth promoting these energy drinks. When I told her where we were from and where we intended to go, she loaded my arms up with the cans for sustenance, insisting I take at least one of each flavor. I hadn't been able to bring myself to try them until now, and although the taste was less than savory, they sure did the trick. Lack of breakfast (the most important meal of the day and my hands-down favorite) notwithstanding, I was pumped for these caves!

They did not disappoint. Carlsbad Caverns is, in a phrase, the cave to end all caves. (I guess I'm not being technically correct in saying that, though, since a cavern is, by definition, a large cave or a cluster of caves, and Carlsbad is certainly a series of very large caves.) In retrospect, the caves we visited in Missouri are dwarfed in comparison, so I'm glad we went to those first (especially since we got our own private and informative tour). 

The pictures we took inside the caverns don't do them justice, as pictures often fail to do, but especially because the lighting in the caverns is so poor for photography. But we savored each ocular delicacy we set our eyes upon--corals, helictites, stalactites upon stalactites, stalactites running into stalagmites so you can't tell which is which or where one ends and the other begins. Then, since we are young and able-bodied and the wait for the elevator to take us back up to the real world had grown significantly by that time, we decided to walk the 79 stories out of the caverns.

We finally emerged after 1 1/4 miles of grueling ascent with every muscle in our legs and bums burning. Our next stop was my sister's in El Paso. I was so excited to see her that I offered to drive the two and a half hours there, even though I was hungry and sleep-deprived. (Colin was more sleep-deprived, although probably less hungry because of the double dinner he ate the night before, but he gratefully acquiesced and handed over the keys.)

Now, a lot of people thought we were crazy when we told them we were stopping in Texas after New Mexico and before our destination in San Diego. But for the less geographically inclined of my readers, I'm including a screen shot of this part of our route so you can see just how much sense it did make to stop there for a few days to rest our bones, visit with family, and (of course) do some laundry. 

So I started driving down the windy desert roads away from the caverns. When we were about to be on the highway, I realized we only had a quarter tank of gas. No problem, I thought, I'll just stop at the first gas station off the highway.

Fifty miles later, we hadn't passed a single exit advertising gas, let alone a roadside fuel station, and we were getting worried. Colin used the GasBuddy app on his phone to find the nearest gas station, and it told us to turn around and head back to Carlsbad. Knowing we probably didn't have enough in our tank to get us back there, I prayed the app was wrong. I had no choice but to forge ahead. I drove and drove, growing more anxious with each "bing" alerting us of our dangerously low fuel level. We debated whether we should just call AAA and let them know that we would certainly be running out of gas any minute now and to just send someone out, please, to find us broken down somewhere along Route 180 between Carlsbad and El Paso. Judging by the gaping expanses between highway exits and the lack of any visible civilization, we figured we'd be waiting several hours for roadside service.

Finally, we approached an exit for another highway running north to south. Hoping and praying that this highway would lead to some sign of civilized life within the next twenty miles, I got off the exit and headed north (south would likely have brought us into Mexico). There were no other cars on the road, but we did pass a lot of farmland and tractors in operation. After about fifteen miles of this, I spotted a gas station. As we drew nearer, I saw it was desolate, the sign reading a number so low that I hadn't seen in years. Just as I was gripping the wheel in a silent scream (Colin was somehow miraculously asleep at this point), I saw another gas station. I pulled in, shut down the engine, and thanked the heavens that we'd made it. Colin woke up just as the car was bouncing up the driveway so I didn't even have to pump the gas--a simple act that growing up in New Jersey has allowed me to develop a resentment for.

Driving back to the highway, I was too relieved that we hadn't broken down in Middle of Nowhere, Texas that I couldn't be annoyed at the extra thirty minutes of driving we'd tacked on to the trip to my sister's. Thankfully, the rest of the drive was uneventful, and now here we are, hanging out with Sarah, Mike, Cooper and Sadie. And as I said before, it is SO NICE to be here.