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Day Nine found us at Sonic Burger for an awesome drive up breakfast before our Lower Cave Tour at Carlsbad Caverns. Need to make reservations in advance as these tours sell out quickly, especially on holiday weekends.

Right before this pic was taken Mx and I were huddled and laughing. Um...really? Really. Yeah, we repelled into this tiny hole, that led us into this amazing cavern. Mx said something like, "What kind of tour is this?"



But once inside we did just fine. Cave helmets a surprisingly good look for us.



One person actually had their own helmet and gloves. Thought she'd be an ace at climbing with all her own gear, but, that's another story...

After the caves we hit the road for Alomogordo...

They--rreree---heeee--rerree. At least they were here. Touring The International UFO Museum was a little beyond the kitch-fest I expected. Biggest surprise for me was all the first hand accounts of what exactly happened all those years ago in Roswell and there was this I-beam. Well, the best part about the museum was their desire for visitors to put the pieces together for themselves. Incident is such an fascinating word. Not used very often, and, when it is, seems like there's always something a little controversial going on. Words with attitudes. Note to self: must use more of those types of words.



Most unexpected treat? The great lunch we had at the Mexican dinner down the street, El Toro Bravo Restaurant. Good food and friendly. But the guys in the booth behind me who wanted to buy us beers creeped us out a little bit, it wasn't their lack of teeth, exactly. Just a feeling we got.

The road and the heat had made us weary. After an AMAZING nap we headed over to Carlsbad Caverns for The Bat Flight, what Mx and I had lovingly dubbed The Bat Show. Visitors to the Caverns call each day to find out the time the flight & ranger talk will take place because the bats change their flight in relation to the sunset. Anyway, we were very excited because thousands of bats fly out of the cave and we were all over that. But, when we checked in, a nice lady behind the counter said they only had one bat the night before and hadn't seen bats in weeks, they thought in part due to the dry weather, and no bugs. Mx and I cracked up. So we waited. And waited. And there was this little boy giving his mother hell that was worth the wait even if we did get one bat. But, the bat gods smiled on us that night and thousands and thousands of bats left the cave that night. The Bat Show is up there in my all time TOP 10 WILDLIFE MOMENTS. LOVED IT. I didn't want to leave. They swirled out of the cave in a sort of bat hurricane and Margaux and I grabbed each other, cracking up. Got goosebumps the swarm was so beautiful and the way the moved together in groups to fly out over the remote hills in the distance. A flock of bats is called a cloud. Some clouds were big, some were small. But the ones most fascinating to watch were the large clouds because the bats flew in sync with each other, changing course together all to the staccato rhythm of the beat of their wings.



We fell asleep dreaming of the bats and the spelunking we'd do in the morning.