Notrees

Luckily, we seem to be resilient. When the satnav power system failed again we resorted to the map book. Which got left behind. And while West Texas and New Mexico are flat they are so vast that discovering a mistake might take 30 of 4o miles until the next intersection puts us right. But who cares, right. It's an adventure. So big hearted thanks to the young chiquita at the service station in Kermit for sending us on the back roads to Carlsbad.

We drove for hours through the working oilfields of Texas, pumping, pumping, pumping. There are thousands, no tens of thousands of these prehistoric wee pumpers doing their thing. And it looks pretty cool. On, and on, into New Mexico and past towns like Notrees (a misnomer), Blink (missed it, but it is in Winker County), Loving (home of the Loving Falcons), Eunice and Jal.

And once again, America produces such a landscape that neither my words, nor our photos can convey what we saw. The land is on a scale so large that the only way to comprehend it is to pass through it. We, of course, get to drive - imagine what it would have been like to ride or walk through it. It simply would have gone on for ever. And it is so empty that the human mind simply wilts.

Once in Carlsbad - a rusted streak of a town, with empty shops and lots stretching out into the top end of the great Chihuahuan Desert - we made tracks to the Carlsbad Caverns. I don't know how I knew about them, but they have long held a spot in my must do list. And they didn't disappoint. Heroic, mythic, mouth-droppingly stunning. The caverns sit below an enormous, ancient reef. They were etched from the limestone when methane from oil deposits bubbled through calcium carbonated ground water to produce sulphuric acid(true!). And then they just kept on building and carving themselves out. We did the 2.5 mile walk, down to nearly 1000 feet. The park service have produced a wondrous experience. Here's a photo from the 20's: