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Um, what can I say? Fun. Pure. Fun. Felt like a kid sledding in the wintertime back in Chicago when I slid down those sand dunes [which are surprisingly cool despite the blazing sun]. Couldn't get enough. Only, I don't remember the hills being so hard to climb when I was a kid. We had a blast.

On our way to Pie Town--a must stop destination--we passed The Very Large Array [which fit nicely with our continuing alien theme]. Any Contact fans? This is where they filmed the movie:








Just made it to The Daily Pie Cafe before they closed at 3PM....





we each had three slices of pie for lunch and bought a Mexican Apple Pie [FREE PIE RECIPE HERE just scroll down the page & a great link to a condo in Kauai, too] for Joe to celebrate his birthday when we arrived home. After a stop in Winslow, AZ,



we hit the road to see The Meteor Crater:



and stopped off at The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ to check out Saturn through The Pluto Telescope:



and, after toasting our last night we fell into bed and got up the next day to drive home.

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.