When we arrived at Carlsbad Caverns, however, we learned that there were indeed some tours available – including a special “holiday” tour of King’s Palace by lantern. Even though it would add an extra day onto the trip, we pounced on the opportunity. We quickly made our way down the trail to the natural entrance – an incredibly impressive way to experience the cave. After the 750-foot descent, we wandered through the first half of the Big Room self-guided tour before grabbing a quick snack and making our way to the guided tour meeting place. This tour was a lot of fun – it’s a much different experience to explore a developed cave with only lantern-light. Kim had an especially good time.

After the ninety-minute tour was over, we headed back to finish the back end of the Big Room. With growling stomachs, we took the elevator up to the visitor center, had lunch in the adjoining restaurant, and got our passport stamp and pin.

We then hopped in the car and drove back west to McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park to get a passport stamp that we had missed the previous day. Unfortunately, the visitor contact station is closed, and, windy as ever, we decided to skip any short hikes in the area. It was late in the afternoon at this point, and it was obvious that we would not make it to Chamizal before they closed – and we certainly wouldn’t make it home tonight.

We ended up staying in a Ramada in El Paso, a decent suite room that comes complete with kitchenette and mini living room. After eating dinner out, we returned to the room to watch the conclusion of a bowl game and plot tomorrow’s schedule. The plan is to arrive at Chamizal National Memorial across town at 10am when they open, spend approximately an hour there, and then start heading home.

Unless we’re feeling anxious to get home early, we may stop at Fort Bowie National Historic Site, the only NPS Arizona site we haven’t done yet. We’re hoping to start working on our trip photos and summary page this weekend.

Unfortunately, neither was possible. After arriving slightly ahead of schedule, we entered the visitor center and chatted with the ranger. I asked what hiking was available, the ranger answered “not much really.” The one trail in the NRA was flooded – and was only 2 miles long to begin with, connecting the visitor center parking lot with a boat ramp. Yikes. To his credit, the ranger did come up with a couple of bushwhacking possibilities, but none of them sounded very exciting, even after a full day of driving. In the end, we drove to a couple of dayuse areas, snapped some quick pictures, drove out to the dam, snapped a few more pictures, and called the unit “done.”

If we return, we’ll be sure to bring a kayak and paddle out to Panther Cave, and maybe plan a day at the local state park – which seems to have some great trails and archaeology. But, to be honest, this is one of those units that we yawn at and reluctantly visit just to get the passport stamp and pin and check off the list. This is clearly one of those National Park units that should not be managed by the NPS – instead, it should be run by the Army Corps of Engineers or BLM.

After the disappointment of Amistad, we headed back to Del Rio, the city we were staying in. We spent awhile stealing wifi from the hotels while we decided where to stay, finally ending up at a Best Western (using a AAA discount despite the fact we aren’t members – hotels rarely ask for the card, so it’s worth the risk for the 10% you get off). Then it was over to Applebee’s for dinner. Kim was craving an Applebee’s salad and I had promised a stop last night. Unfortunately, the steak and shrimp dish I ordered was horrible – so much so that I hardly ate any of it, and the waitress offered to remove it from the check as soon as she saw it sitting mostly untouched at the edge of the table and before we could mention how crappy it had been.  After a couple of quick stops, we grabbed a to go order from Chili’s and made it back to the hotel room to watch Oregon pound Oklahoma State and discuss Mike Shanahan’s firing.

Tomorrow we’re off to Big Bend National Park, the highlight park of the roadtrip. We have a couple of options for the rest of the trip. One is camping in Big Bend tomorrow night and spending a full two days there before heading over to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Chamizal National Memorial before returning home. Otherwise, if we feel like we’ve done enough to get a good taste of the park (we’ll be back for a kayaking trip in the next several years), then we might stay until dusk then head out to a motel in Alpine. That would give us an extra day that we could use to stop by Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which happens to be tantalizingly close to Guadalupe Mountains.