So basically since I last posted (whenever that was), a lot of things have happened in the world: the Cubs and Sox have fallen, the USA basketball team is doing well, and Facebook added a gadget where one could post his/her blog onto the site. [Don't worry, I'm not so stupid to think that's a good idea.]
And over the last couple days, Northfield got hit with hail, New York City a tornado, and the bustling little hamlets known as Chicago and Houston got pelted with some nasty rainstorms as well; but all the while I somehow picked the perfect time to go to someplace completely new: Carlsbad, New Mexico.
The city (or town? I have no idea how big it is) itself didn't impress me very much. It's a lot like a Texas town, with sideways traffic lights, dilapidated sidewalks, and brand-name stores that I never heard of before. The Caverns, on the other hand, were pretty damn amazing. Well, amazing in the sense that we got to go on a candelight tour of one of the deepest caves off the beaten path, and probably damn near fell off it, given how risky the ground was.
But amazing as the caves themselves were (and they were pretty freaking amazing), there was nothing like watching the bats fly out at sunset. They're not great fliers, but the manner in which they fly just takes my breath away, in that we consider how misunderstood these creatures are (they're assumed to be dark, evil bug-like animals that can't see in the light) and how un-gracefully they fly. But then we realize that, like birds, they fly in teams, and that they really rely on each other for pretty much everything: food, warmth, even shelter. Birds are much more independent animals, and since it's human nature to admire birds much more than bats we tend to emulate them more, relying on ourselves than each other.
But it was good to get away. I had never been this far out west (my previous far-west record was Denton, TX), and I got to experience the joys of driving in an 80-mph zone, as shown below.
I actually was having a little too much fun with the high-speed zone; I went 85 much of the time. I was tempted to go faster, like 90 or 95 even, but I couldn't know for sure if there would be absolutely no cops patrolling the zone (why would they, there's NOTHING there!).
Driving aside, it was fun flashing pictures in the dark caves--I had about 100 of them before the camera's battery went dead about 2/3 through the walking tour--but I got some pretty neat pics, like the one with the lion's tail impression and the yellow staircase.
I even got a pretty awesome pic of me whistling in the Big Room; it's a really big cave complex, probably several miles wide in each direction. [I actually didn't whistle, since it probably would have sent an eerie echo throughout the space; but still a fun pic nonetheless.]
Right before I left St. Olaf for the end of the summer, I was hanging out with a couple friends when we found a bat flying in the hallway. It was pretty freaky, because I'd never seen a bat up close. But fortunately we grabbed a few sheets, nabbed it, and released it back into the wild. After all, bats are mammals too, and we can't even say that about birds.