Spring Break! Part I: Carlsbad Caverns and Aunt Claire's House

For our Spring break we decided to take a road trip out to Arizona and catch some national parks. Friday after school we packed everything up, got the oil changed and hit the road, despite the fact that after a night shift Thursday to Friday I'd only slept three and a half hours. We drove until we made it to Carlsbad, where we spent the night. First thing in the morning we went to Carlsbad Caverns.

They had an awesome visitor's center. It had lots of displays and today they had a station where they helped you make bat magnets.

Ian was fascinated by the bat display. He was not tall enough for the cave explorer cut out, but he insisted I take his picture anyway.

Words cannot describe nor does this picture adequately show the enormous size of Carlsbad. What you see in this picture is just the top half of the cave opening. it descends several hundred feet down and is by far the largest cave system either Matt or I have ever been in.

One of the best parts about Carlsbad is that it was self-guided. There was no sitting around with antsy kids as eager adults ask questions to a garrulous tour guide.

Miles got carried quite a bit of the way as he kept claiming he was too tired to walk. He had a suspicious renewal of energy once we got to the car, however.

Somehow all of Miles creations end up as cyclops. I'm not really sure how that works but here is his one eyed bat magnet. Naturally we got a stamp and a sticker for our national passport book. We drove the rest of the day until about ten at night when we arrived at Aunt Claire and Uncle Lee's in Tuscon. We got to meet baby Paul, which thrilled Liam and Ian to no end. Miles was indifferent. All three boys loved the sliding glass door and patio. At one point, Ian eagerly ran to go outside...smack into the sliding glass door. Guess it was too clean. We stayed the night and when we wandered around the apartment complex in the morning spotted a jackrabbit and a coyote. We had a yummy breakfast with Aunt Claire and Uncle Lee, went to Sacrament meeting, and then headed up to Mesa to see Uncle Ian and Aunt Aimee.