Carlsbad Caverns

We drove from Lubbock into New Mexico, stopping at Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns are natural limestone caves that house over 400,000 bats. It's America do obviously you could get an elevator down but we decided to walk down the natural trail which was worthwhile as you begin to understand the depth of the caverns. We could only go as far as the trail would let us but there was a section called the bottomless pit, which got its name because original explorers believed it was bottomless, however, more recently it has been discovered that the pit us 140 feet in depth. Once we got out we realised the real effect the caverns had had on us as we all felt a little sick mainly due to the temperature drop, outside we had been in 38 degree heat and this dropped to 13 degrees in caverns! After our trip to the caverns we had another cabin night. These cabins were much nicer than the others with less Mosquitos but they were absolutely boiling and again hardly anyone slept because we were all sweating, but that was our last cabin night so no more sleeping bags yay!!!!!!!! x-x

How many states in 4 minutes....

Our tour leader Lana has been creating games for us to play on our long drives just to keep us entertained for a bit. The other day we played how many states can you name in 4 minutes and my American studies degree really pulled through for me here! It turns out I can name 46 states in 4 minutes, missing out only Missouri, Michigan, Florida and Wyoming. Anyway I won a picture of us all in New Orleans and I'm pretty proud of myself x-x

Lubbock

Like I said we are literally just trying to make our way through Texas at the moment and that means driving 7 hours from Austin to Lubbock, which is the birthplace of Buddy Holly and the towns only claim to fame! I was the only person who knew who Buddy Holly was, only thanks to Nan haha! On our drive we stopped at the runaway train cafe which was a quirky little cafe in I don't know where, there was literally nothing around but fields. We then continued on our journey and finally arrived in Lubbock, where we thought we'd have an evening of doing nothing but the town actually had a drive in movie theatre with a diner on site. So we got our camp chairs, pizza, nachos and popcorn and watched 22 Jump Street under the stars. We actually saw a shooting star as well so it turned an evening in a tiny little town into quite a memorable one. x-x

Austin

On our way into Austin from Houston we stopped at a place called Barton Springs which is a massive natural pool of water that you can swim in. The springs were really fun but the bottom of the pool was really slippery because where it was natural a lot of moss etc has grown on the bottom. After a couple of hours sunbathing and swimming we went to a really nice Tex Mex restaurant in downtown Austin before making our way to the hostel. Austin is most definitely one of the places I want to come back to as we only spent one day there but it seemed like a really cool city! Sorry about the short not very informative posts but we're basically just trying to make it across Texas at the moment and obviously making stops at places for only 1 night and not doing a whole lot but driving x-x

Houston

After a lot of traffic we finally arrived in Houston. We had to stay in cabins in our sleeping bags, which pleased none of us. I literally had the worst sleep of my life because I realised that what people have told me for years is true, I'm a very restless and fidgety person when I sleep and sleeping bags do not leave much manoeuvre for that! Plus I was scared to let any part of my body hang out. The best thing about the cabins was that we got to have chicken with salad for dinner and then roast marshmallows and make s'mores.

Swamp Tour

On our way out of New Orleans we stopped at Honey island to have a swamp tour. I will not lie, before we got there I was freaking out and for some reason in my head we were going to be in some canoe sized boat where the alligators were going to jump and eat me but thankfully that's not what happened. However, the boat actually sat about 30 people and had railing so as long you had your hands and fingers inside at all times, you're not losing any body parts! The guide took us out on the boat, then stopped and the alligators swim up to be fed, so it's a bit like a murky sea world even though the guide was trying to tell us these alligators are not trained! What was interesting was to see that people had houses right on top of the bayou with children's play equipment in the back yard which I thought was a bit dangerous considering people have built their house right on top of the alligator's! What I also learned was that Mosquitos do not come out during the day because dragonflies and birds eat them, so I smothered myself in bug spray for nothing. Enjoy my alligator selfies :) x-x

A few photos from NOLA