Two days, two National Parks: Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains

When we delayed our Season 4 launch back on the road, we canceled all of our January bookings to give us some leeway. We'd stay flexible through the month, launching when we could, and booking campsites as we rolled along. However, we still had February reservations that we hadn't canceled, in hopes that we could catch up to them. Our first campsite reservation was set for February 15 at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park in New Mexico, just outside of White Sands National Park. This was our planned location to celebrate Anthony's birthday on the 18th. The state park campground came highly recommended, and we had been waiting patiently to visit White Sands ever since our 2020 road trip that we had to cancel due to the pandemic.

No other campground reservations were set, but if we could get to New Mexico early, we hoped we could first go to Carlsbad Caverns, another National Park we had eagerly been waiting to visit. The Caverns were requiring timed entry reservations, so some planning ahead was necessary. The reservations opened up one month ahead of time on a rolling basis. Our best day to go would be February 13, but on January 13, we were still at our home-base in Massachusetts, not knowing if we'd be leaving at all. New Mexico seemed so far away. We figured our best bet was to book a timed entry just in case because it's cheap to do so. We also reserved a spot for one of the ranger-guided tours. Perhaps this would be a motivating finish line for our blitz across the country.

We left our home-base on January 18 and had an overall smooth drive the 2700 miles to NM, something that is unprecedented for us! We even got to enjoy a couple extra stops leading up to Carlsbad, like Palo Duro Canyon and Roswell, NM. We planned to arrive to our Carlsbad campground on February 11 to give us a full day to settle in and get work done before our reservation on the 13th. We stayed at Sunset Reef, a small BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campground that's first-come, first-served. It's more developed than the dispersed camping areas that BLM owns, with 5 RV sites and 6 tent sites, each with their own picnic pavilion, grill, firepit, and trash can. These few sites fill up very quickly, but it's an unspoken rule that you're allowed to break the rule that says to park in designated sites only. People park on the perimeter of the campground all the time because there's plenty of room. No officials seem to check or care, and while a few campers have complained that the perimeter parkers block the view, the majority welcome more campers in. We figured we would see if we got lucky mid-day on a Tuesday. Perhaps a designated site would be available. If not, we'd read the vibe and decide what we wanted to do.

Noon was about 30 minutes too late, as we later learned from our neighbors that they had just settled into the one remaining spot. However, we felt more than safe being the first ones to take a perimeter spot. We stayed hitched, though, in case someone left the next morning. As you may know, we haven't had the best luck with BLM camping, but Sunset Reef is in a league of its own. We know that a campground is only as good as the people who park there, but our little community was fantastic. Everyone was super nice and we all respected one another and picked up after ourselves. We wish it wasn't a surprise when everyone works together and no one takes advantage of the free camping, but we've had experiences that have made us cynical. We were happy to have some restored faith in humanity after our few days here.

We spent Tuesday afternoon launching our new drone for its first official flight, watching the cows in the nearby field, and chatting with our neighbors. Then on Wednesday morning, two designated campsites opened up, and we grabbed one of them. We would have been perfectly content staying on the perimeter, but because we'd be spending a few hours at the Caverns the next day, we felt better about putting our rig in an official spot.

Thursday morning, we drove the 25 minutes to the Caverns. A cold front had rushed in, creating extremely dense fog, which blocked all the views along the National Park road. Good thing we were there for the underground wonders! We were a little confused as to where to go for our timed entry, as there were no clear instructions. We parked at the Visitor Center and went inside to ask someone. That's when we saw the ticket counter, and one of the rangers called us over to check us in. He also got us all set up for our Kings Palace Tour and gave us instructions on how to hike down to the bottom of the Caverns. You have the choice to hike or take an elevator. Hiking involves a walk outdoors to the natural cave entrance, plus about 1.25 miles down 750ft of steep switchbacks.

Our word for the caverns is "grand." Everything about it, from the natural entrance to the cave rooms, is massive. On our hike down, we stopped for a lot of photos and also got to read about some of the famous formations.

Once down in the cave, all visitors have access to the Big Room, where they can partake in a self-guided tour. Our Kings Palace Tour was starting soon, so we needed to wait until after it to see the Big Room.

We had trouble finding our meeting spot at first, because it wasn't on the sign and the ranger told us it would be by the elevators, but the whole "rest stop" area was under construction and veiled in a white dust cloth. We found the meeting spot on the other side of the under-construction concession stand. The tour would last 90 minutes and take us through the Kings Palace, which is a massive cave room with formations that resemble the royal king and his townspeople. We would also get to see the Queen's Chamber. This tour descends as low as 830ft, which is the lowest the public is allowed to go in the cave.

Guided tours for us are hit-or-miss, and they really depend on the guide. Unfortunately, ours was as green as his ranger suit. He spent most of the tour reading from notecards, and we could tell he was extremely uncomfortable with public speaking. He would make long pauses in the middle of his sentences and said "um" more than he said the word "cave." We tried to stay positive, as this tour was the only way we'd get to see the Kings Palace, and it was an incredible room. We just felt like we learned practically nothing and could have completed the tour in a half hour. We would still recommend it for the room access, and maybe we just happened to get a ranger who wasn't comfortable, and others would be better. With everything that's happening with our public lands, we were thankful to have ranger-guided tours at all and were happy to see our guide enjoying his job. He had just been offered a permanent ranger position after 5 years of being seasonal.

Our tour left us pretty exhausted, and so we did only part of the Big Room before taking a shortcut back to the elevators.

We left the cave feeling a little bit underwhelmed. Are we really that jaded when it comes to caves?! I mean, we have seen some pretty spectacular ones. We scratched our heads in wonderment, but ultimately realized that, Carlsbad Caverns' draw is its size. It defines the word "cavernous." However, there is a lot more open space than other caves we've gone to. We like wandering through caves that are decorated to the nines in formations. Carlsbad certainly has the formations, including probably the best cave draperies we've seen anywhere, but if we compared Carlsbad to, say, the Cathedral Room at Blanchard Springs Caverns, it doesn't offer anything we haven't seen in more extraordinary form.

We also may have built our Carlsbad visit up in our minds. After all, we had been waiting over 5 years for this, and we used it as our finish line for our 2700-mile journey from MA. We're still glad we went, because to us, any cave adventure is better than no cave adventure. We just don't think it was our day.

With our journey underground complete, it was time to rise in elevation. We left Sunset Reef and made the short drive to the Pine Springs Campground at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the adjacent park to Carlsbad Caverns, named after the Guadalupe Mountain Range. Unlike many National Park campgrounds, Pine Springs is basically a parking lot with a handful of RV spots. Some people complain about this, but we appreciate that the park has overnight spots for RVs in the first place. They could have easily made the park tent camping only. We barely fit the full length of our rig into our spot without unhitching, but we were able to angle ourselves just so, and we fit all 56 feet in with less than an inch to spare. We were only staying one night and would be staying in the park the whole time, so remaining hitched was wonderfully convenient. We also had some famous West Texas winds come in, so the added weight of our truck made us feel more secure.

While other couples might go for romantic dinner dates on Valentine's Day, we spent the day nature walking the trails at Guadalupe. One small trail connected the campground to the Visitor Center, so we took that first, snapped a couple pictures at the park sign, and then wandered into the Visitor Center to walk through the museum and grab our National Park pin.

Then we walked the Pinery Trail, an easy .75-mile paved trail that leaves from the Visitor Center. We didn't have enough time to do anything more strenuous, nor did we want to try. The winds were picking up and we weren't used to the higher elevations yet. The Pinery Trail was great, though. Guadalupe has multiple ecosystems, where some areas get more water and others remain more arid. There are spots in the park where oak and maple trees grow, and we could even spot some evergreens way up on the mountain ridges. Then down below, we strolled among the yuccas, sotols, chollas, and prickly pears.

The end of the trail brought us to the ruins of Pinery Station, an old railroad stop on the rugged Butterfield Overland Mail Route in the 1800s. This mail route spanned 2800 miles from St. Louis to San Francisco, and although mostly used as a way to make mail delivery more efficient than the alternative boat route, passengers were allowed to ride as well. This ride wasn't for the faint of heart, as passengers were forced to endure extreme conditions with the weather and terrain. Pinery Station is known for being the highest elevation stop on the railroad, as well as the most isolated. The National Park Service preserves the ruins, so we can get a glimpse into history, and feel better about how luxurious our journey of similar distance was compared to that of the brave travelers on the Butterfield.

Two National Parks were already wrapped for 2025, and we were ready for more! It was finally time to head to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park and to the unique gypsum dunes of White Sands National Park.