The cave doesn't look like much from the surface
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This is kind of like my first real web page, because the others I had written before. This is basically a summary of my week.
Cheat Central's Chrono Cross Codes
I had played this game before, and had a saved game of it, but I had never finished. I could talk about just this for the 500 words that I need to be done with this, but I won't. Chrono Cross is the sequel to a game called Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger was a special game because it was the first game to have more than a "You win" or "You loose" ending.
It had, the first time you played the game, 3 endings. There was
After you beat the game once you get a new game + option, where you start out with all the powers that you had at the end of your last game. Also, you can now fight the last boss anytime you want. You get the other endings by going at different times to the last boss. It is the same for Chrono Cross.
The basic plot of Chrono Cross is that you are a normal teenager in a world where magic exists. The game starts off with a strange dream sequence, and then you wake up.
You find out that you were supposed to get some Kimono dragon scales (the latest rage in the village) for your girlfriend. So you have to go and hunt some down. After you do, you meet her at the beach, but as you're talking you hear someone calling your name. Something strange happens, you black out, and when you wake up, your girlfriend is gone. When you get back to the village no one knows who you are. It turns out that you are in another dimension, and have to find your way home.
I finally managed to beat the game, and am now working on a New Game +.
The cabin is looking very nice, and I think that the most improvement is in the loft. With the new skylight in place, and the beds taken out, it seems like there is a lot more space up there. We inflated the air mattress that might go up there permanently, and hauled it up. We think it needs to be inflated more, but other wise it's okay.
Pratchett has a unique view on some things. For instance, when someone said, in one of his books, "As always, my motives are entirely transparent." His thought was that if something is entirely transparent, then you can either see right through it, or not see it at all.
Web Sites about Terry Pratchett and Discworld from the Mary L. Cook Public Library in Waynesville, Ohio
My entire 500 words this week are going to be on Carlsbad Cavern. I could probably write more on it, but I think 500 words will be enough.
We went into Carlsbad two times. The first day we went we did two things, one was the self-guided natural entrance tour, and the other was the bat flight.
For the natural entrance tour you go inside the building, and get a ticket. Then you go to a room where a video tells a bit about the cavern. After that is over you head out down a path, past the seating area for the bat show and other activities, and finally you reach the mouth of the cave.
At this point many people stop to look at the entrance. It is not your usual hole-in-side-of-hill entrance. This one only has a little ground over the top, and it slopes near straight down.
The cave doesn't look like much from the surface
We had to go down a large set of switchbacks to get to the actual cavern floor, but the first visitors didn't have it so easy.
The very first person (aside from the Native Americans) to go down had to slide down the slope. Later, when that same person was giving tours of the cave, he lowered people down in a guano bucket. This way two people went down some 200 ft. in total darkness, because the tour guide only had one lantern. After lowering all of his group down he would come himself with the lantern. When the tour ended, he would climb up a ladder to the top and bring people back up two at a time, leaving the other people to wait in the dark. Now we have it easier. For instance, I had an audio tour with me. You have probably seen one of these before, it looks like a portable CD player (This is probably because it is a portable CD player). A few museums have them, and when you see the number for something you punch it in the player and listen. In the cavern however, they have a hands free audio tour. Probably because they can't label things in the cave. Their tour works by radio signals sent from under the path you walk on. This way, you never miss a part of the tour, you never punch the wrong buttons, and you don't have to strain to see the numbers. The only problem with this that I can see is that the self-guided tour becomes too much like a guided tour. There are places where you can keep walking, but a few times the guide tells you to stop or slow down to look at something and hear about it. This is a problem if you are with people who don't have audio tours, because they tend to get ahead of you and not stop when you do. There are some really amazing formations in the cave, and if you get into the cave just as it opens or just before no more people can go down, you can hear the amazing silence of the cavern. 
Switchbacks leading down into the cavern
Iceberg Formation
I wish I could describe the cavern, but I can't. It's not that I can't remember, it's that the experience is not one of just sight, but also touch (the temperature), hearing (the silence), and (unfortunately) smell. The combination of all of these is what the cavern is about.
Well, I have gotten through most of our first day, and because we found the official map and guide to Carlsbad Cavern I would like to mention a few things we saw on our way.
The first one is the Twilight Zone, which is about 200 ft. below ground. It is not an area where strange things happen, but an area where it looks like twilight.
Next is Devils Den, 500 ft. below ground. It was called Devils Den by the cowboy who found the cave, because there is a large hill there that is a "Devil" to get over (Good thing visitors now days have a tunnel to go through). The last thing I'm going to mention about our first day is the Iceberg rock. It fell from the ceiling a long time ago, and is guessed at weighing as much as a jumbo jet (You can see a picture above).
Day: 2
On our second day in the cave (we did come out and go to our hotel for the night) we went on what is named the Big Room tour. We started some 755 ft. below ground, where there is a cafeteria, several shops (selling shirts that say things like "I went to Carlsbad Cavern and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"), and restrooms.
The Big Room tour takes about 1 hour, or is 1 mile long, whichever comes first. If you feel tired by the time you get to the halfway point, I would turn back, because it gets a little harder from there.
There are only two things that I really want to talk about in the big room. One is the Bottomless Pit, and the other is the Rock of Ages.
The Bottomless pit actually has a bottom, and is not even the deepest point in the cave. The reason it is still called the Bottomless Pits is the name stuck. It was called that originally called that because the first explorers couldn't see to the bottom of it with the lanterns they had.
The Rock of Ages I want to talk about not because of size or shape, but of a strange tradition. Once a year, the rangers will turn out all the lights and stand around the Rock of Ages, singing. You can probably guess what they sing. If you can't I'll give you a hint, it's a hymn, the title of the song starts with a "R" and ends with a "s", and the title's middle word is "of". Is your answer "Rock of Ages"? Very good! Anyway, it was started when a noted male singer saw the name of the Rock, and broke into song. The people nearby were so moved, that he had to sing another song, just to get them to calm down. Well, that's it for Carlsbad, I hope you get to see it sometime.
