The Drive to Texas, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Alamo

I am a person that has to learn from firsthand experience. So when I was moving from Orem, UT to Houston, TX, I decided that I was going to drive. Granted, Exxon paid for me to move the few items that I did own professionally. So I didn't have much really to take in my car besides my parents. We made this into a trip by seeing Carlsbad Caverns and the Alamo. This made the 1,500 mile trip more bearable, especially since we spread it over 4 days.

You can see from my little GPS that we actually went 1,600 miles in about 25.5 hours. This includes our little detour to Carlsbad and the Alamo. Our route may have not been the fastest but it was well worth it.

Me driving; I think that I was somewhere in New Mexico.

Honestly, could there not be something more frustrating than this? I think this took several minutes until we were finally able to pass.

It was fun to see some of the landmarks along the way: Shiprock in New Mexico.

Carlsbad Caverns
Pictures just cannot do this place any justice. The caverns are massive in distance and height. You go down almost 700 feet into the earth just to begin. When you are down there it has almost a Disneyland type of feel to it because it seems to surreal. I recommend everyone go at least once. Nature is just awe-inspiring. Below are some pictures of the caverns, enjoy.

These two pictures are right outside the entrance to the caverns. Look at the desert all around us. The view was great.

We took two tours. My favorite was a candlelight lantern tour. It is only performed once a day, so not too many people have been down that cavern in the past. Along the tour we doused all of our candles. It was the weirdest feeling; the darkness felt like a blanket. No light at all; though you could tell your mind was trying to see something in the darkness.

The Alamo

I know that you have all heard this before, but the Alamo is not big at all. I think we saw it all in the matter of 1 hour. It was fun to hear the story of the Alamo while sitting next to the restored barracks and even hear about how Texas won its independence.

This is the restored barracks where.

This is what everyone thinks is the Alamo. This is just the mission where the women and children hid. The entire fort used to be much larger and encompassed the old mission.

Supposedly this tree was alive during the attack on the Alamo. (The bench was pretty tall)

Another view of the church at the Alamo where the women and children hid.