Middle of Nowhere Continued...

Carlsbad Caverns

On the second night of our trip we stayed in El Paso, Texas (as there was no civilisation in South of New Mexico for us to find shelter) and headed off early in the morning to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

By now we were getting used to long drives through miles of nothing (literally not even a petrol station for over 100 miles) and this drive was no exception. We had a few hiccups with the GPS early on, you know the usual telling you to 'please make a U-turn now' in the middle of the highway, no big deal. But after an hour we were pretty sure we were going in the right direction... You can only imagine my confusion when suddenly we were fast approaching a series of flashing orange lights on the side of the road directing us to a station just off the road... Which brings me to:

Border Control 

I reluctantly pulled into the shelter guarded by men in uniforms carrying guns and also armed with HUGE sniffer dogs whom didn't look like they could be bribed with our sweets. All five of us immediately started freaking out as we joined the queue of cars just waiting to be deported. Naturally we assumed we were going into Mexico, and under NO circumstances could we go into Mexico, our visas wouldn't allow us back into the U.S. All sorts of things were running through my head, how could we escape? Was it too late to turn around? Should we ask them to turn around or just do it? Does the control station count as crossing the border? HOW DID WE GET TO MEXICO?

We get to the front of the queue and the conversation goes a little something like this:

Man with gun: Hello mam, can I see your driving licence?

Me: Of course, can I just ask if we're going in the right direction? We're trying to get to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, our GPS hasn't been working, where are we? (by now this is word vomit trying to get out as much as physically possible before we're stuck in Mexico for the rest of our lives)

Man with gun: No man, you're going into Mexico

Me: Mexico?

Man with gun: Yes mam this is the Mexico border

*all of us look like we're about to cry*

Man with gun continues: I'm only joking mam, this is the border to New Mexico, are you all U.S citizens?

Me: No, none of us

So I pull over to where I thought he told me to pull over (turns out it was the wrong place and we ended up causing an even larger queue than before) and we all get out our documents, he no longer thinks we're illegals and he lets us on our way while I try to recover from the minor heart attack he gave me. We're back on track to...

Carlsbad Caverns

Now I learnt that day that these caverns contain over 118 limestone caves, although we only got to explore the largest one. We took a self guided tour that taught us about all the animals that still live in the caves, such as bats, however it wasn't the right season for them and they wouldn't be back until Summer, such a shame. The cave was HUGE and it took us almost 4 hours to walk all the down and around the bottom. Surprisingly it wasn't cold inside, I don't know much about caves but I expected to be freezing! It was well worth the crazy drive. 

Cadillac Ranch

After our day at the caves we made our way back to Texas, staying in Lubbock, a small University town very similar to Norman, Oklahoma. On the way back to Oklahoma on the Monday we stopped by Amarillo, Texas to see the famous Cadillac Ranch. I had read about it before coming to the states and put it on my list of 'random things to do around Oklahoma'. The ranch is quite literally an empty dirt field with maybe 8-10 old style cadillacs lined in the center of it. You are legally allowed to decorate them artistically with spray paint (a.k.a graffiti, vandalism) and it is so much fun! I met a nice Texan lady while we were there who explained that a 'local eccentric billionaire' placed the cadillacs there a number of years ago for this exact purpose, to be painted. 

And eventually we found ourselves back in Oklahoma wondering how we could ever beat that trip... At least that was until Spring Break came along!