On the way to the Best Western at White's City, we stop at the New Mexico/Texas border to take photographs. Here, we are approached by a lady driver whose car has two flat tyres and she wishes to borrow "a cell phone". Fortunately for her, a truck driver stops to help. 

Although we arrive at the Best Western before the check-in time, we are given access to our room which is of a standard motel design, but is huge.

 

We then drive to the nearby Carlsbad Caverns, one of the largest cave systems in the world, but also renowned for being the sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats.

With the assistance of a self-guided audio tour, we enter the cave via the Natural Entrance, where we see some cave swallows. The access to the caverns is a long, steep, and winding descent, which takes us down 750-feet to the Big Room. Here, a circular, 1¼-mile path takes us round the 1,800-feet long, 255-feet high cave where water and time have carved out huge columns and stalagmites, as well as delicate rimstone and soda straw formations. The walk round the Big Room is quite tiring and takes about 2½-hours, but is well worth the effort. We leave the cave via an elevator at about 6pm, and then have a rest and coffee at the Visitor Centre.

 

 

 

White's City is more of a resort, catering for visitors to the National Parks at Carlsbad Caverns and Guadelope Mountains, than a town. Part of the resort is Jack's, an eatery next to where we had last night's meal, and where we have breakfast this morning. Breakfast at Jack's is included in our hotel's room rate and we present a voucher in exchange for food. The system for ordering food is confusing, but the staff cheerfully deal with a large number of bemused customers. Whatever you want, bacon comes with it! However, we manage to get OJ, cereal, toast, and coffee. Chaotic,  but a good fun start to the day.

 

We hear several people at breakfast discussing the lack of hot water in their rooms this morning; an experience we also shared. Consequently, we get a 30% discount off our room charge when we check-out. The resort's gas station is completely automated, with payment by credit card - a system that seems to becoming more established in the states.

 

From Carlsbad, we drive non-stop to Lubbock in Texas. Our watches go forward one hour as we cross the state border just past Hobbs. The countryside is flat and open all the way - the scrubland in New Mexico containing nodding donkeys, potash mines, and natural gas production units. In Texas there are more of the oil pumping nodding donkeys, but the scrubland is replaced with cultivated fields thanks to extensive irrigation systems - the crops being produced include peanuts, cotton, and fruit. But the main difference between the two states is that everything in Texas is much tidier: less litter and neater houses in small towns.

 

Having driven about 190-miles, we reach Lubbock at 1:30pm and soon spot a recently opened Krispy Kremes outlet. Here, we have coffee and doughnuts, and buy a mug. Jeanette manages to get an extra doughnut free of charge - plus a paper hat.

Shortly afterwards, we book into a Hampton Inn located in a quiet and prosperous looking area on the town's South Loop Road.

 

We then drive to downtown Lubbock to find the Buddy Holly statue and the Walk of Fame.

 

Visiting the life-size statue of Buddy Holly fulfils another of our 'American' ambitions, and we then seek to achieve another by visiting the grave of the rock and roll star who was killed in an air crash in 1959.

Thanks to good sign-posting we find Lubbock Cemetery, but we are only successful in finding Buddy's grave in the vast cemetery when a worker instructs us to follow his truck. The grave has a number of guitar picks left by visitors.

Our next stop is the Buddy Holly Center with its enormous reproduction of Buddy's famous spectacles.

Despite a sign outside the centre saying it is closed, in fact we find it is open - Monday is a 'maintenance' day, and accordingly, visitors are discouraged, but not turned way. This is a providential bonus, as we had decided that the centre opens too late in the morning to allow us to visit tomorrow, when we have almost 400-miles to drive. The small museum is extremely interesting, and we have it to ourselves. Together with plenty of information and memorabilia, the museum clearly illustrates Buddy Holly's impact on the development of rock and roll music. This evening we eat at the Texas Land and Cattle - large servings, but surprisingly, we have had better steaks outside of Texas. It was extremely hot today, the maximum temperature probably reaching 100F; it was still 93F at 8pm.

(20) Tuesday, June 15th 

This morning we discover that the temperature in Lubbock yesterday reached 101F, and that the forecast for today is 98F. As usual, it will be sunny.

 

Utilising the Loop Road on which the Hampton Inn is situated, we are able to bypass Lubbock's centre to access the I-27 northwards - this is the way to Amarillo. After about 50-miles we stop at Plainville to buy gas. Our route takes us across the plains of the Texas panhandle and, after about 120-miles we reach the outskirts of Amarillo. Here we turn west onto the I-40 and near Exit 60 locate the Cadillac Ranch.

In a flat field we find ten old Cadillacs buried, end-up, in the soil. This strange site is made even stranger by the psychedelic artwork that adorns each car.

After viewing this unusual tourist attraction, we find a branch of Krispy Kremes where we have doughnuts and coffee before rejoining the I-40 to drive eastwards.