Vacation Day 8 - Friday

Wake up. It’s dark. Not time to get up yet. Steve goes to the bathroom and when he comes out 2 little boys are awake. No, it’s dark. Not time to get up yet. I check the clock…8:00. Must be wrong. Then I look around and realize there are no windows at all in this room. It actually is 8:00. So much for an early start. Bathe kids and eat continental breakfast.

Drive out to White Sands and pull out the plastic sleds Grampaw made especially for this part of the trip. Both kids are loving the sleds, although Jackson is a little happier if his sled is not going down a hill. Still we all take several rides. I wipe out in front of a German couple in their swimsuits. They laugh at me. We offer to let them try out the sleds, and they decline. We also make sand angels, bury each other and generally get very sandy. Great fun!

Next, more driving. Carlsbad is our next destination. We talk to Matthew about how we are in New Mexico, where our friend Al is from. Matthew wants to go to “Mr. Owl’s” house. “No, Matthew he lives in Houston now. Remember? You’ve been to his house.”
We’ve agreed to bring Al some New Mexico green chiles. You can get them in Houston at HEB around this time of year, but never the hot ones. We find a store in Carlsbad called “La Tienda” (of course) and they have a guy out front roasting chiles. Steve has ignored my request to stop for fast food and instead comes out of La Tienda with a bag of chimichangas and 4 cherry ciders. I’m skeptical that the kids will eat the food and not looking forward letting them drink the sticky red drink in the car. While Steve waits for the chiles, I give Matthew a chimichanga and try one myself. It’s actually pretty tasty, although we haven’t exactly been eating gourmet the past few days, and my standards are pretty low. I give the 2nd half of mine to Jackson because I don’t want him to take one bite of a whole one, spit it out, then squish the rest into his carseat. He takes a tentative bite, and then devours the rest! He and I split another one and Matthew ends up eating about 1/3 of his. Steve returns with a large box of roasted chiles. From this day forward our car with have the aroma of roasted NM green chiles, which is great for a mexican food restuarant, but less so for a gas guzzling SUV.

We drive on to White’s City, gateway to Carlsbad Caverns, suspecting correctly that we are too late to walk into the caverns this evening. This is a strange town, but we decide to get a room and check out the gift shop. Things seem in disarray, like folks don’t quite know what they are doing. When we go in the gift shop we find out why. Gift shop guy apologizes for the mess and tells us that the town was recently auctioned off.
Me: What? The whole town?
Guy: Yes. 2 hotels with a small water park, a number of residences, water and electric systems, several shops, a grocery store, restaurant, all of it.
Steve: How much did it go for?
Guy: $1.7MM. It happened just last week.
Both of us: Is that all?
Guy: Yes. Electric system alone is worth $2MM.
Steve: Are you the one who bought it?
Guy: Yes. And I didn’t tell my wife for three days. Just came down here looking for a deal on some land. Didn’t know I’d end up buying a whole town.

We go to our room, shaking our heads and laughing about the situation and now understanding why everything is so disorganized.

Kids are like wild hyenas running and jumping all over the room. We hang around a bit, then head out to see the bat flight. Bats are awesome of course. But perhaps the highlight of my trip is the premier of Matthew’s beaver walk. He says, “Hey Moma, this is how a beaver walks.” I have no idea where this came from, but it is so funny and cute that I laugh every time I think about it. There are no words to describe it. You can only hope to see it in person one day, or that I happen to catch it on video (but then it might be sideways).

Back to hotel and scrounge around in the cooler for something for supper. Baths. Bed.