Day 9 - Abilene TX to Calsbad NM

First stop today was to the air force base at Abilene, Texas. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us in the base so we had to take our photos through the 6ft wire fence.  Bit of a shame, as I understand there's a B52 in there.  

Here's a B1 Lancer Bomber that was within camera-shot.

We had a bit of a look around Abilene.  Got to say, it's not really a tourist town and it has a definite this-side and that-side of the railway thing going on.  Here's the main drag...

The number one attraction of Abilene, according to TripAdvisor is the Paramount theatre.  Here it is.  You can see the current movie they're playing is Jaws.  I don't think it's the 3D version...

The inside is quite well done...

We had a quick look at a WWII museum - the main attraction there was a Sherman tank, out the back.   I think that's a Tiger tank turret there as well.  (Is that right, Ray?)  There were also a couple of half-tracks and a Willy's jeep. 

As we travelled along I20, west of Abilene, the country-side became more and more "Wild West".  Wind farms - there is a HUGE one on this road.  It goes on and on for miles. 

Chris - I think you were looking for a Texas oil pump rocker.  Here you go.  At first we saw these just occasionally but as we travelled further and further west-ward they became more prevalent.  At times, we could see dozens and dozens of them in the fields on either side of the road.
 

Here's another one...

 We made a slight change in our route to Carlsbad, which meant we travelled for about 150 miles on roads we knew nothing about.  We stumbled onto a large meteor crater site so we decided to stretch our legs and have a look.  Here's the path around the crater.  Note the snake sign.

We were on red-alert snake patrol - rattlesnakes and scorpions are common here, apparently and my bare-toed shoes weren't offering a great deal of protection, so when this guy jumped out in front of me, he gave me a hell of a fright.  He was quick a decent size, to be fair.
 

Speaking of critters, the front of our car is rapidly resembling a significant bug collection.  Problem is, they're all a little flat.

We took a turn off the interstate at a place called Pyote, population 114.  Here's a shot of one of the buildings there.

Yay- finally, the border!  Cool sky too.

Here's another sky shot, just for you, Chris. There's some mammatus there too.  The temperature at this time was pretty warm - it touched on 100 degrees F for a few minutes before this cloud came over.  No thunderstorms or anything  - just a cool sky.  There was a bit of wind though and we saw half a dozen dust devils in the desert  - one tracked across the road around 100m ahead of us.

One of the roads were were travelling along today was tiny.  No centre lines even.  Quite a change from the interstate where the speed limit was 80 mph!  This little connecting road had heaps of judder bars and no fencing to stop grazing cattle from wandering onto the road.  Here is such a case...

As we approached Carlsbad Caverns (very large cave complex in New Mexico), the scenery started to get a little more hilly.  Here's a shot of a Turkey Vulture (Buzzard) casing the joint for lunch.

This rock ledge was once used by Indians as a shelter from the weather.

By the time we made it to Carlsbad Caverns, it was too late to enter the caves, so we chilled out there until the sun went down to watch a bunch of bats leave the cave for the evening.  In mid-summer, hundreds of thousands of bats leaving the cave make for quite a spectacle but tonight there were only 100 or so.  Matt - you'd love it here...

Here's the view from the Carlsbad Cavern National Monument.  I think we're around 3000ft up here.

And here's the cave entrance.  The amphitheatre is used by those wanting to watch the bats depart the bat cave.

 

Finally - here's a random shot of the Chev, as it's parked at the National Monument car park.  I don't think you've seen a side profile yet.