A few miles south of Roswell, New Mexico is a small state park called: Bottomless Lakes State Park. As our road-trip opened up before us, we decided to stop and visit this interesting park before making our way to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

We arrived at the Bottomless Lakes park and found the first water source to be very low, the water receding away from the edges and leaving dry, sandy lake beds.  We continued deeper into the park and found guest services, so we pulled over to explore.  Here was the first “lake” that we could see.

The lake is surrounded by steep, rocky walls.  You can tell there’s no way to enter the water. I mean, unless you take a running leap and launch yourself into the water. Then I assure you there is no way out of the water.

Museum

The state park has a lovely little museum in the guest services building. there is one

interactive display with a clever hands-on exhibit. The ‘bottomless’ lakes have all had their depths carefully measured and documented.  They’re not quite as bottomless as the name implies!

The exhibit allows guests to lift the water (a piece of plastic) out of the table exhibit, so you can see the relational shape and depth of water in the “lakes.”

Cenotes

The museum explains how the limestone rocks in this region formed caves, and these caves eventually collapsed. The collapsed caves leave behind the deep cenotes that we now call ‘lakes.’

Let’s set the record straight. New Mexico is fibbing!

The lakes aren’t bottomless. They are actually very carefully measured and studied.  The deepest measured depth is 90 feet. Distinctly not bottomless.

They are also not lakes. These are cenotes.

See? Fibs.

I guess “Scientifically measured cenotes that aren’t really that deep Park” doesn’t have the same romantic zing.

Birds do what now?

Several of these cenotes are not swim holes. While I was there, my travel companion mentioned that there might be fish in the waters.  I speculated that there wouldn’t be any fish because these were filled with rain, and fish would have to be deposited – and there wasn’t fishing on site – so I theorized no one paid to put fish in the waters.

And then I was schooled.  The hunter amongst us explained how fish eggs can attach themselves to water fowl and could easily get deposited when the birds land in the cenotes.  I pondered this. I had no idea fish eggs could attach to a bird’s legs or feathers. But apparently this is one method that fish ‘travel’ to isolated locations.

Huh. Who knew?  You learn something new every day.  And today I learned sticky eggs can fly.

Swim holes for summer fun

There are a few designated for swimming or kayaking, etc.  In the frigid temperature of February, there were very few people in the park, and no one was seen swimming.  We explored briefly before striking out for another drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico.