June 23 -- Arriving at Carlsbad Caverns National Park

 After a day's drive west from my home in Dallas, across the Permian basin, I arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. 

I was welcomed by the Rangers, oriented to the park's resources and issued a volunteer uniform! I have a ranger shirt and an official namebadge too.

I was escorted to my provided lodging: a 1902's era casita built by the CCC (civilian Conservation Corps). It has 3-foot thick stone walls and will be a comfortable "home-away-from-home".

From my porch, I can see across to the visitors center.

The natural entrance to the caverns is right behind this building.

 

One of the big draws at Carlsbad is the "BAT FLIGHT", where at sunset, around 400,000 mexican freetail bats fly out of the cavern mouth to go on thier nightly feed. I walked down to the amphitheater above the mouth of the cavern and, on que, at 7:30 PM, the bats began voluminously flying out. It is really spectacular. It lasted only around 15 minutes, but the volume of bats was impressive. I have seen the bats fly from the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas; but this is far more spectacular. Intending to not startle the bats, no photography is allowed during the bat flight, but I took this photo of the amphitheater before that started. A greater audience showed up after I took this photo.

After the bad flight ended, it was interesting watching the audience leave the auditorium. It reminded me of the bad flight -- how they almost linearly, swirled up out of the amphitheater and headed towards the south.

I saw this really cool millipede trekking across the concrete sidewalk as I was returning to my casita.