New Mexico Day 6

We altered the plan on the agenda today. We were supposed to go to Santa Fe and check out old town, but we found out that Carlsbad Cavern is closed on Friday. We decided to get to Carlsbad early Thursday rather than late to make sure we got to go in the cave. It would be too ironic to plan a ten-day trip to Carlsbad Cavern and miss going in the cave! So we began the three hour drive to Roswell right after our waffle breakfast.

We got in to Roswell about noon and made sandwiches in a Walmart parking lot. Then we unhooked the truck and drove to town. The boys liked watching out the windows for aliens, and Seth quickly caught on that we were looking for little green men with big black eyes. Gary told us to check out the International Alien Museum “with an open mind,” which we did. I have to admit that I’m still pretty skeptical, though. It was fun to learn about the Roswell Incident, as it is called here. We took a few crazy alien pictures, but the gift shop was probably the best part. There was even an alien spoon and an alien golf ball for both grandpas’ collections.

Seth started the pictures of all of us looking like aliens.

We thought it was pretty awesome to match the alien statues.

Seth is great at these poses.

Dax decided to share a drink with his new friend.

Finally, we headed out to where we are staying at Bottomless Lake State Park. This state park is the first state park in New Mexico, and they also have the nicest ranger. Though they don’t have a Junior Ranger program, he did give the boys a badge and told them they had to do a hike to earn it. We also tossed in stickers, chapsticks, red-light key chains, notepads, magnets, and pens.

This state park is beautiful. Once we got the motorhome set up, we decided to go to the beach at the lake. There is a really nice shaded area with a lifeguard tower. The beach is sandy and shallow, and the water is a really nice temperature, especially after it was 100 degrees in Roswell today. There is also a beautiful tower and a shaded stone area with picnic tables. We swam and played for over an hour while Glen made Dutch oven dinner.

The water was very clear and beautiful and the fish would even nibble on your toes if you sat still enough in the water.

The boys love playing with Randy in the water.

Seth was super brave in the shallow end of the lake.

Seth made a special lake for his little boat.

Mark and I walked to the other side and you can see how pretty the water is.

Tonight we decided to go for a night hike. So about 7:45 Glen drove us up to a shuttle trail and let us out to walk one mile back to the campground. We watched the sun set as we went, and we hiked by a really cool series of small deep lakes. We were hopeful of seeing some really cool wildlife like a ringtail or a bobcat, but we had to settle for two nighthawks and a dozen or so cottontail rabbits. It was a nice cool hike and reminder about how nice it is to be together.

We spotted a deer...well, a Seth deer.

We did see a million bunnies!

We also saw a ton of these black beetles and we had to stop and look at each one.

The sunset was pretty along the hike.

Bottomless Lakes has a few different little pools other than the big lake.

We had fun hiking in the twilight despite not seeing any amazing animals.