In New Mexico now and today we headed underground again. This time we took a tour down 700 ft into Carlsbad Caverns. We descended in an elevator accompanied by a Park Ranger who had already started to fill us with knowledge on this particular cave. Each cave tour actually has two rangers, one to lead and explain and one to bring up the rear and make sure that no one gets lost. Our guides today were Ranger Mike and Ranger Aron and I think that there is a requirement that rangers must be cute and personable. These two fit the requirements as did our ranger guide at Karchner Caverns. Needless to say, Carlsbad Caverns were as beautiful as Karchner and we had an edge this time. We already knew a lot of what we were being told. There was one special moment, actually about 10-15 minutes, this time the Rangers turned out the lights and we were "immersed" in darkness. It is really pitch black in a cave down 700 ft. Could not even see our hands in front of our eyes. Ranger Mike talked to us for a while in the darkness and then he lit a lighter. Wow, it was a very small amount of light but so reassuring. He said that the lanterns early explorers brought down was about 7 times more light than the lighter. Then he extinguished the lighter and told us a story about the first explorer in this cavern, a sixteen year old boy. He found the opening while herding cattle and entered without telling anyone where he was going. He kept the cave find a secret for quite awhile as he explored and went further into the cave. One time while he was walking around a room in the cave with his lantern on the floor a ways from him, the light went out, he panicked, ran headlong into a stalagtite (formation from the ceiling) and was knocked out. When he awoke, he very cautiously found his lantern with one of the three matches he had left and then managed to light his lantern again using both of the remaining matches.....scary!! With that, the rangers turned the lights back on and we realized how dangerous cave exploration can really be. Once the tour was over we were taken back to the "Big Room" (about 17 football fields long) and allowed to explore it as long as we wanted. We walked around the entire Big Room which was about 1 1/4 miles. By the end I was hungry and insisting we return to the 5th wheel for lunch. Great excursion!! P.S. It's really cold here!!.....32 degrees. Much warmer in the cave......56 degrees.