31. Carlsbad Caverns NP & Guadalupe Mountains NP

We considered this the beginning of the real trip - where we stayed multiple nights rather than just trying to move large distances. On average, we stayed 3 nights per stop going forward through the end of California.

We had the perfect lunch stop on the way to Carlsbad. They had a Domino's right near a nice, big park with large playground. There was all the space we could want and all the stuff to climb that Jordan could want. We ate on the playground and relaxed for a bit before continuing on. The Carlsbad KOA was just fine. There was a playground, though not as grand as the lunch one.

The next morning we headed over to the natural entrance of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This cave was plenty big to carry Jordan in the hiking backpack, which made all the difference comparing with Mammoth Cave.

That place was huge and awesome. Jordan did great all the way through. If she had yelled in there, it would have been horrible since it would have echoed forever. Luckily, she did not discover that. We ate some subs at the parking lot picnic tables that we had picked up on the way in. Any picture of Bruce eating is never pretty.

Afterwards, we headed over to Guadalupe Mountains National Park visitor center. Jordan loved the animal display inside. We only walked around on the path behind the visitor center since it was pretty hot and we had already done Carlsbad that day. Jordan passed out on the drive back. We kept a secondary backup bear in the car for such emergencies. On the way back to the campground, we stopped at a place in town called Sips, which had delicious desserts.