Vacation Day 2

Woke up to a beautiful sunrise this morning. It’s amazing that with no alarm set, I was wide awake at 6am.

Braden and I went for a mountain bike ride. The trails are short and pretty easy. We fired up the Coleman stove and had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

We hung a hammock and all took turns relaxing. A good portion of our day was spent trying to protect a nest of baby birds from a snake. The snake was about 3ft long and wanted to get to the birds. There were 3 adult birds trying to protect the nest then we joined their team. Armed with rocks, we stood guard, but “the serpent was more crafty than any other creature…” We hung around the campsite through lunch before heading off to the Carlsbad Caverns. Apparently the snake waited us out and had a nice dinner or the birds learned to fly. They are not there anymore.

The Caverns were cool (literally) and took up most of the afternoon. We ate dinner out and the went back to the caverns to watch the bats fly out of the cave. It was not the “amazing bat exodus” I was expecting. Kinda looked like a few bats flying out of a cave. Ranger Robby was entertaining while we waited and we learned a lot about the Mexican Freetail bats and their prey, the Cotton Ball Worm Moth.

We saw lightning all around us as we fell asleep. It rained a little. Tomorrow we pack up and head north to Eagle Lake State Park.