The Big Room

Writing about the National Parks, I struggle to control my use of hyperbole.

It took about an hour today to wind down eight hundred feet - the equivalent of eighty stories - and arrive at the Big Room at the base of Carlsbad Cavern. The Big Room is the size of sixteen football fields. Walking around its perimeter and trying to process what we were seeing took longer than walking the mile long serpentine path that got us there. The Big Room is indescribable. Go on the website for Carlsbad Cavern National Park; try to contain your amazement. Then multiply that by one hundred to approximate the experience of being in this sacred place.

At the summit of our hike at Guadalupe Mountains National Park yesterday, we ran into four college students who are hiking all the National Parks reasonable driving distance from their hometown of Houston. After they gave us suggestions about what to see in Big Bend National Park - our next destination - we shared with them our goal of visiting all fifty nine parks. They asked us which has been our favorite so far. I answered Acadia National Park in Maine; my wife said Glacier National Park in Montana. That was before either of us saw Carlsbad Cavern. The more National Parks I visit, the more picking a favorite seems as much a fool's errand as controlling my hyperbole writing about them. Each one is a unique treasure.