Day 7 - 7/21/99 |
Carlsbad, NM |
Oklahoma City, OK |
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| Total Miles: 2396 | Miles Today: 582 | ||
This morning we swam out of bed. I cannot remember a
time when I have been so hot or so cramped. The car was pretty comfortable, with our
big inflatable mattress, but the combination of the outside temperature (80+), the
sleeping bag, and NO Airflow meant that we ROASTED. In the middle of the night Rex
got up and cracked open the back gate on the car which helped a little, but since there
was no wind, there was little airflow from the front of the car to the back. We
sweated. Especially with Little Miss Space Heater sprawled about. Little Mr.
Space Heater no doubt contributed just as much.
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We had no explicit plans for today except to visit the Carlsbad
Caverns. We left the RV park by 10 A.M. and drove the 23 miles to the Caverns.
As we were pulling into the parking lot we noted a bunch of license plates from
different states. Our brains started ticking . . . humm . . . License
Plates->Digital Camera->Web Page->HEY! We Jumped out of the car and
proceeded to take pictures of 25 different state's license plates plus Ontario, Canada!
We were so stoked that we had found so many different plates (Which can be found in
the Pictures section) that Dodi forgot
to bring her hip pack and therefor her wallet. This would almost put us out of
business later when the camera started to run out of batteries (The spares being in Dodi's
pack.)
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| We finished up the Caverns at about 1 P.M. and went to get
some food. We stopped at a thrift shop and got some sheets to cover the windows and
Wal-Mart to get some Velcro and Scissors to cut up the sheets. We then plotted our
course for New York, NY.
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Once we finished taking pictures, we bought a ticket and walked
through both trails that didn't require extra money. The "Natural
Entrance" was a disappointment for Rex who was expecting something more spectacular.
Dodi, however, was pretty excited. It was a one mile hike to the other trail
and the exit. We figured that since we paid for both trails we might as well take the
second loop as well. Boy, it sure was worth it. The "Big Room" loop
had a bunch of really impressive formations that were awe inspiring.
We took a LOT of pictures but only a few turned out. There was too little light - It
turns out that the camera could take low light pictures, but you needed to hold the camera
steadier than Rex was able. We couldn't see the blurring on the little LCD screen on
the camera so we kept taking blurred pictures. Luckily some of them did turn out and
they're pretty cool (As you can see.)
We don't have any plans to stop at any sights on the way to New York, so we just needed to
pick places to stop to sleep. We figured that we'd like to drive until 10 PM - That
left us with about 7 hours driving time, so we set the ambitious goal of Oklahoma
City. At about 520 miles away, this seemed like an obtainable goal. What we
did not take into account though was the the fact that the highway that Streets picked for
us was a highway, meaning it had cross streets and stop lights and all manner of
towns such that we were not able to keep up our standard cruising speed of 75-80 MPH and
instead were subject to intermittent periods of 35 MPH. Ugh, who wants that.
We are staying at another EconoLodge - Cheap = good.
