What I am enjoying most about this trip so far, is having these little gems of experiences. Small vignettes mixed in with the bigger stuff we’re doing. When you’re on vacation, I think you miss some of the more subtle things that are going on around you when you travel. You don’t really become immersed in what you normally do day-to-day. And we are staying in places that don’t really attract tourists during the winter, so it’s easy to “fit in”.
This particular day I had two meetings I needed to attend. We were staying at a State Park and didn’t have an internet connection at the trailer for the first time since we left home. So, I worked my first day from a cafe in Artesia, NM. Caleb found this coffee shop/internet cafe, Jahva House, on Yelp that said it had great free internet, good coffee drinks and Boar’s Head meats. What more do you need from a cafe! We both ordered a coffee drink as soon as we arrived then sat at our separate tables with our computers. I not only had my computer I had my headset, pads of paper, and cell phone. The Yelp reviews were right! They did have great internet and coffee! The sandwiches were pretty good too. I think I had a vegetarian sandwich and passed on the Boar’s Head meats though. I was saving myself for BBQ in Texas! And I had had enough pork pozole that I felt I could use a break.
It was really fun listening to and watching the locals come and go as they had their coffees and ate their lunches, meeting and talking to their friends and other locals. A little slice of someones everyday life.
The bigger stuff, and why we were actually in this area – Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Incredible cave! I want to come back to do the Lower Cave tour – which we had tickets to do, but was cancelled because the 750′ elevator was out of service. And, I want to see the bat flight at sunset. We missed it by about 3 weeks. They migrate to Mexico in the Winter. I thought we were in the South and this is where they migrated to, but I was wrong.
Woman holding a white owl is what I see in this cave formation.