Bourne's BIG Trip: Carlsbad Caverns:King's Palace (DON'T WANNA MISS)

(SEE "CARLSBAD CAVERNS: THE SURFACE" BEFORE READING THIS.)

It was my first cave since Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, in which we walked on stainless steel stairs, with low ceilings, some big breaks in that and passageways, and water dripping, plus three different changes in the environment. This, on the other hand, was an uphill right, with a huge intersection in which the area had a super large ceiling, and many twists and turns. We ended up being at the back of the line, by Erin and some other people that Mom talked to later. Anita was in the front, talking as she walked, saying things that we didn't know she was saying. She didn't stop. We passed by draperies, a beautiful little river making the silvery water come on by, but she still didn't stop. I wondered if it was worth our money. There were some huge boulders, still more stopping. Was the cave so big that they just had to do a walk through? We turned left, with the guy at the back with the camera talking to Erin, and a tan man with a hat, black hair, short and has an annoying nasal and Jersey accent talking to Anita. He made a lot of jokes, and I would try to do some later to challenge his wit and charm, and see who would outlast the other. Just for fun...or maybe not. Okay, so we turned left, and came into an area of zig-zag trails, and saw a pretty drapery on our right as we made our way down. Anita finally stopped.

She was down by a rock wall on her left, with everybody in a line behind her. Erin said to Anita, "EVERYONE ALL AND ACCOUNTED FOR" as I kind of shuffled my way through, intent on both hearing Anita and asking some questions also. I strangely found myself by that "funny" guy, who I can compare to Jerry Seinfield, in attitude, not in looks. I hope he's not reading this now. But we'll call him Jerry, to have a name for him. Or Arnie, because he looked like an Arnie. Short for Arnold. But it doesn't matter. Let's just call him Jerry because I like it better. Anyway, she started a speel about the geologic rocks, how caves are all just rock until water rushes through and makes it all air. It was confusing as she talked about the dinosaurs in relation to this time, stating so many different periods and times and B.C.'s and epochs that it was all I could do to not have all the words in my head fighting for gain in my memory, making my cranium explode and all of my cells fall over the cave, to be stepped on by people forever more. She asked for any questions. Well, I had a few, like, "WHAT UNDER THE WORLD (see what I did there) ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" But I didn't. It would of been good for the blog to get Anita's reaction. Oh well.

I did ask something though, and it wasn't about geologic history, but of human one. "Who was the first person to discover Carlsbad Caverns?"

Silence for a few seconds. Then from Anita, "Well, the first people to discover Carlsbad Caverns were the local Indians, probably, but they didn't actually go in the cave, afraid of evil spirits and local legends. Oh and the bats that migrate down here. We know they camped in tents, the nomads, because they have smoke that came down, as in the lobby underground where you entered. We can never get that smoke off the ceiling from those BBQ's in the early days of the cave again. But the first person to explore the caves...well I can't tell you that right now either." I had earlier asked why they called it the King's Palace, but she couldn't tell me at that time either. Oh well. Jerry said in his annoying voice, shaking me as he did so, "SHUT UP, KID!" in a jokingly way, laughing after. I faked laughed along with him, and later he said that it was a joke, and he meant no harm, which I knew that. It was kind of funny. Okay, so it was like 30 minutes into the tour, and so far we hadn't seen anything REALLY cool, but it was a start; at least she was stopping and giving us good information. It was interesting, especially for Rebecca who loves rocks, the whole limestone thing. That is the most popular material in the cave: limestone.

"There's a low ceiling up ahead, people!" Erin had been sitting on a ledge, at the end, taking notes on like the second level of the zig-zag, when Anita said that. We guessed Erin was taking notes because she wasn't yet a tour guide, and was preparing to give her own tours. She would do this throughout our tour of King's Palace. Well, we walked through the narrow passage, now Dad by me and Mom and Rebecca a little further back. We walked through some other chambers, with high ceilings and a lot of tumbling rocks of limestone on our left. We came into one place, with a guy with a motorcycle shirt on, and he asked a lot about the trails and the steel later; he must work in the business or something. In a room was a long ledge, and Erin sat at one end, and we sat in the middle. We were with our backs to an alcove with stalactites and mites, and Anita had just explained the whole, "hangs tightly to the ceiling" and "might touch the ceiling" process, as we also saw some cylinder columns. We were in a circle of ledges, facing Anita and looking up at a medium sized hole, where crisp cold air entered in and a blue sky with white sky reigned. This was probably the entrance of the first explorer. As everyone seated, she began to talk.

"Jim White, a sixteen year old cowboy of a nearby ranch, saw what he thought was smoke over a hole, and told his horse to go on over. Upon closer inspection, he saw that these were actually bats, and came back later with a makeshift ladder made of rope and wood. Now, when caving, you're supposed to follow the rules of three---well their are a lot of other rules but these are the three main ones---to tell three responsible people where you'll be and when you're coming back, to go with at least two other experienced cavers, so three cavers, so if one gets injured then one can go get help and one can stay with the wounded, and to have three independent sources of light. Some people just take one flashlight and a whole lot of batteries. Well if you drop the flashlight, what will you do with a couple of batteries? A lot of batteries and three different sources, like a flashlight, a lantern, and then maybe an iPhone...just kidding. But when Jim White went in, he didn't follow any of these rules. He put the ladder down, and walked down it, (Anita did a little play-acting for us) and then saw that he needed more ladder for going down. He guessed that he could make the jump and that it was less than 7ft. When we were teenagers, we thought we were invincible, so we would do it, right? That was probably the most important jump of Jim White's life."

Then she talked about the history of later Jim White's life a little bit, something you read in Carlsbad Caverns: The Surface, if you read it. Anita also said he was reportedly the first explorer, and why he named it King's Palace was yet to be told to us. She said, "Jim White, after his candle went out, was in total darkness. TOTAL darkness. Now, I'll show you how that experience is, if you just turn off all your light, and be totally quiet while I talk. Now, (as everyone turned off their cell phones and other things, Dad clicking off his flashlight and cameras put away) Erin, turn off the lights! Their had been lights in the grooves and on the sides, in holes and in small lakes, reflecting off the light. Now, they all went black. I love those experiences.

I blinked, adjusting to the darkness. In Mark Twain Cave, Mammoth and Meramac, people had turned off all the lights, and they had always been asked if they didn't want it to happen and other things. It was always cool when we went to a cave though to have a renewed experience of it, and I can't quite describe total blackness, because, well...it's total blackness. Like a thief's cloak, a black cat's fur, a pirate's heart, black. Of course, as your pupils adjust to all the black, you see spots of purple and blue, not existing in reality but in your mind as your eyes take in the environment. People shuffled and moved, as I was sitting by Dad on my right, tickling him to make him think a spider or something was going up his back, as he hit my hand down. Same poor results on the test on Mom. Rebecca was the exact same way. None of them fell for my dirty schemes. But you just wait...April Fool's Day I will get them....WITH THE HELP OF DR. VON HANDSON'S! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

But back to the blog.

Anita described Jim's experiences, as I wondered if Jim White had any relationship to White's City, a place we had seen on our drive to the caverns. I planned on asking our smarty park ranger about it later. She certainly wasn't modest, and tried to be funny. Smart though and nice enough. Striking a lighter, a small circle of yellow light appeared before the tour's eyes, and Anita's face was illuminated. She explained that one small lighter gives off better light than we would suppose. I actually saw everyone in the circle, which was pretty cool. Mom whispered that she didn't remember this part of the tour. She had remembered some others though, like that first stop in the little room with the trail going down, and Anita joked a piece of rock had broken off a week ago. Really millions of years prior though. I forgot to tell you that part; sorry I am so forgetful. Anyway, Anita said some other things, before turning the light back on and saying that the next stop was King's Palace. Finally! We were about to go to the long awaited destination of the journey! All my questions would be answered as we would enter the King's Palace. Would it be worth the publicity? Would we want our money back? Or would it be like all the caves we had been to, enchanting, picturesque? Only time would tell.

Under another low ceiling and through some more passageways, we finally came into King's Palace. It was a fairly large room, tites and mites everywhere, with some columns too. It was about the size of a living room, or den, maybe bigger. There was a ledge that Anita directed everyone to sit on, and I liked sitting after all the standing, hiking, walking, and such. It was a rough rock seat though. We were facing it. Jim White, Anita said, named it the King's Palace because all the columns around a big column looked like a court, and all the mites and tites were so piercing and beautiful, that they resembled a castle, somehow. Over in the left was the Queen's Chamber, a little groove with rocks piled on top. A little river flowed by. It was very beautiful, all of the brown and yellow tites with their sharp dagger-like fangs, and the prettiness and wonderfulness of it all... When air sweeps through, Anita said, it reflects off of all the formations and makes beautiful sounds. I smiled, and felt as Jim White did when discovering it, that feeling of how special nature is, and all those wet brown and yellow formations, making all of the beautiful colorations and textures... I was at peace. I can't describe it. So gorgeous...

Sitting down, we listened to Anita say what all the formations were, and which was the jester and duke, barons, the formations with ones sticking out of them, being knights, and the huge column being the king. Very pretty and cool, it was like Underground Kingdom. Well, they have a good castle, I have to admit, all the twists and turns and 5,000 feet from the surface; I think that an enemy will have a bad day at sieging it. And then who would go up at pure limestone and rock as the Underground Kingdom's armor and protection? Maybe the Fire Kingdom would stand a CHANCE but I think Wood and Wind and Water would be beaten hard like with a stick. Maybe Nuke would win. But anyway......

Mom spotted out, in the left hand back corner, two sharp skinny tites and mites, so close to each other only a piece of cheese could fit through the small area where the points weren't touching. Mom whispered to me that when she came here when she was 13, they called it the Eternal Kiss for years and years, but then they realized it wasn't touching, so they changed the name to Frustrated Lovers. Mom asked Anita a question like, "Isn't that over there called the Frustrated Lovers?" And then Anita went into the whole speel, acting as if she was about to get to that part, but we saw in her eyes that she had forgotten it and was embarrassed. She said that in a hundred years or maybe less they will actually touch, and told some more stuff about the scientific term of soda straws, where the water came around the rock but not in it, creating just air in there. Then if water comes down and solidifies, then it's a tite. Sorry I keep saying tite and mite, but it's so easier than saying over and over stalagmite and stalactite. Or maybe I just shorten everything because I'm lazy. BBT (Bourne's Big Trip) and other ones. Back to the blog though. There was a silver ebony river rustling my, and there was a little pool in one alcove. Well, we headed out to the left after seeing the destination of the tour.

The rest of it was back to that huge ceiling and intersection, and then going up a hill with a zig-zag trail, as Anita told that one guy who was interested in trails what they did and all the concrete stuff. She also told us that only a little while an earthquake erupted on the San Andres fault, and it was actually safer down here, explaining why, using so many scientific facts that I can't even remember exactly what she said. Look it up online.She also asked questions about how the cave was affected by man, all the trails, the lights, people taking the tites and mites off, and us learning about it. She told us to love nature and that we were lucky our country had the National Park thing, and that was one of her final statements to us. But there was a door at the end, and we went through, coming out at the big lobby that we entered in in the first place. Going to the restroom, we bought some things, seeing not many stickers for my guitar case, and got some water. We talked to Erin and Anita a little bit, telling them about their trip, and Anita said that we had a lot of good questions. She was nice and a good talker, but I believe she had a bit of a big head. We actually went into that area with the rock, and went up with both rangers. We went through a line and then into the elevator, and Anita told some people to stay behind the sign, and back up away from the transporting device. Just another instance of her wanting to be in charge. A nice person, though. We told her about some of the other caves we had been to on the day up, and as the doors opened to the outside lobby, she asked if we had done Junior Rangers.

For those of you who don't know, Junior Rangers is a program for kids in the National Park Service where kids do 7/14 of activities in a pamphlet, and then they get sworn in by doing a code to be good to the environment. Then they get a badge, and can buy the vest and collect all the badges by doing more activity books. It's probably tiring but fun. We hadn't done the Junior Ranger thing, never really had time and did more of the museums at the parks, and never really got to it. We did, however, come close to it at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and did some of the activities, but didn't get the back as we left too early. (See "Theodore Roosevelt National Park" blog if you want to) So we answered Anita that sure that would be cool; we just wished we would be at the park long enough to finish the book. Anita went to the slanted information counter, and took two big thin books, and pencils with no erasers, telling us to take the pencils back when we were done. Okay, I thought, but their just pencils that aren't sharpened with no erasers! But maybe she was trying to teach manners or responsibility. For pencils. But we thanked her as she told Mom that she had to sign everything in the opening page, and we only had to do half of all the stuff. But we were hungrier than alligators who had nothing to eat in the swamps of Louisiana, so we went left to the cafe.

We also decided to go on the self-guided tour of the "Big Room." Behind the big gift shop was a buffet line and menu on the wall, and I got a grilled chicken sandwich which tasted so good as we sat down and ate the hot food. So good after being in the damp and warm Carlsbad Caverns. Rebecca and I did word searches, fill in the blanks, all about caves. We even were supposed to find a park ranger and ask him questions. I went with my book and pencil, and Rebecca left hers for some reason. A nice lady at the ticket counter, named Linda(remember that name it'll appear again in a more sinister way!) who answered the questions like what was her favorite park and all. Rebecca copied off mine but didn't get the signature, so Anita just signed it anyway. Dad got mad that we took so long and wanted to go on the tour, but we eventually finished the activities, with 9/14 done, some of them undoable because they involved going on tours in the desert and seeing certain animals. We got in line and did it with two littler kids that had a different book, and then Anita checked it all, again acting as if we were single-minded not smart kids, which we're not, and did the whole swearing in thing. Here it is:

Junior Ranger Pledge:

I, (fill in name here) am proud to be a National Park Service Junior Ranger. I promise to appreciate, respect, and protect, all national parks. I also promise to continue to learning about the landscape, plants, animals, and history of these special places. I will share what I learn with my friends and family."

She asked the little kids where they were from, and signed her name and printed ours on the back of the sheet, as we raised our right hands, all we had to say of that was "I agree" which I thought was pretty lame, so I said myself the whole pledge. I like things that are official. I was sad we had to be with those other kids, and the people before them got to do it on their own. Not really fair. Oh well. We had a choice of choosing either the grey emblem patch or the gold plastic pin. I chose the grey one, because it was bigger and was more stiff and not breakable. Thanking Anita, we put all the stuff away and Dad agreed to take some of it to the car, as we, when he returned, took our tickets and went into the loading area, if you will, with the rock. We were about to go down into the Big Room, the most famous and biggest single cavern in Carlsbad Caverns and all of the world!... that we know of. It was going to be an experience I would never forget. On the way down on the elevator, we went with the person we didn't before, a blonde large young adult who Mom talked to. He couldn't be in the army because of his asthma, and was going to be a detective maybe. The doors opened and we came into the lobby, huge. Dad said we would only spend an hour and might go through the shortcut in the middle of the Big Room, cutting our time in half.

I breathed, took a sip of water, and walked to where we would go to the Big Room, the same route as the one to the King's Palace. I would never forget this time there.

TO BE CONTINUED...(SEE "CARLSBAD CAVERNS: THE BIG ROOM" FOR THE END TO THIS THRILLING INSTALLMENT!)