CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK, N.M. — Eyes wide open and head tilted upward, President Barack Obama appeared awed Friday as he toured an underground cave at a national park in New Mexico — part of a family vacation that’s also designed to draw attention to America’s natural wonders.

Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, spent part of the afternoon at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, one of two national parks the First Family is scheduled to visit on a long Father’s Day weekend away from Washington.

“How cool is this?” Obama exclaimed as a National Park Service employee led the family on a tour of the Big Room, an area nearly 800 feet deep into the limestone cavern that nature carved out of the Guadalupe Mountains.

The Obamas plan to spend Saturday and part of Sunday exploring Yosemite National Park in California.

Coming at the end of a difficult week, the trip gives Obama an opportunity to tout his record on open-space preservation and promote administration programs aimed at boosting foot traffic through the more than 400 sites in a national park system that turns 100 in August.

The trip was also providing the president with another chance to warn about climate change, one of his priority issues, and the need to protect places like Carlsbad Caverns and Yosemite from its effects so future generations can enjoy the parks’ splendor.