AUSTIN CITY LIMITS AND WHO'S DRIVING ME BATTY?

It's been awhile since we've added to our blog, but since that time we've left Corpus Christi. We arrived in Austin, Texas on April 9th and spent a few days with Nancy's family friends, Norma and Tom. We had a very nice visit with them and their extended family members. We attended Sunday Mass with Norma at the beautiful church in the picture. Met Norma's son Tony who took Nancy to her first military ball in the 8th grade. Tony attended a military acadamy for 4 years. I also overheard that Tony gave Nancy her first KISS! Good thing she was only 5 years old.. Sorry Tony,
I knew she had a thing for uniforms, so I had to join the Air Force to get her to marry me!
Well, we left Austin on April 11th and spent the night in Fort Stockton in-route to Carlsbad, NM.














If you've heard of Carlsbad Caverns then you know
this is the area where thousands and thousands of
bats fly out of the cavern every night to feed on insects to feed their young. These bats migrate every year from Mexico in the spring to have their young and live in the "Bat Cave" through the summer months before returning to Mexico. Nancy is in the picture sitting on the edge of the entrance to the cave before we start our decent. The evening routine of the bats flying out starts to takes place in mid May so they had not all arrived yet. We did see plenty of bats on our decent into the cave but not a "Robin" among them...We hiked down 800 + feet into the cave where the temperature is a constant 56 degrees. This was quite an experience and we spent almost 4 hours where the sun don't shine on our journey to the center of the earth! We rode an elevator 800 ft back to the surface which took less than a minute. This is a must see for anyone travelling through this area in New Mexico.
We stayed at Brantley Lake State Park north of the town of Carlsbad (about 50 minutes to the caverns) which was out in the middle of nowhere. We could see this little oasis of a campground from about 5 miles away as we where driving through the desert to get there. It was quiet, as you can imagine, but somewhat unique in its scenery. We had beautiful sunrises and sunsets and hot but windy weather. We also spent a day at the Carlsbad Living Zoo up on a mountain where all the animals and reptiles were in their natural environment. The snakes were nice, and I was glad they rounded them all up in New Mexico and put them in a zoo....They tend to rattle me...

























The last picture was taken at the Living Zoo near the reptile house & John is nowhere to be seen.
We have since arrived in Santa Fe. We will blog about this later. Stay tuned.