Catch Up

I've kind of been on a blogging hiatus lately...just have had other things to do, but one of my friends asked where the rest of my New Mexico/Arizona pictures were. So I thought I'd catch up and post them. Here ya go!

These are from the very first part of my trip in New Mexico. We stopped at this place called the Bandera Volcano and Ice Cave and it was amazing!
Here are my li'l sister, Emiy and I posing in a little natural alcove along the hike to the volcano. This is the day I fried like an egg.

No sunscreen + high altitudes + fair, freckly skin = one very bad idea.

Oops.

The trees along the hike were awesome. A lot of them had been struck by lightning and were charred, a lot of them grew in a gazillion different direction, and some were ginourmous!

Here's a cool tree that I thought looked stunning in front of the volcano. This volcano hasn't been active for 10,000 years, but being up close to it really makes you picture it active! We were all glad it decided to stay dormant while we were there.

My mom is so funny. Wherever we go, whether it be the beach, the woods, the mountains, she likes to look for natural treasures. On this hike, she found a really cool pine cone to take home. I got to thinking, and one of the fun things we've come up with at our house is a "nature basket." The kids collect treasures that they've found outdoors and then they get to display them in a basket we have. I followed suit and found a pine cone and lava rock to take home to the kids.

And here's my goofy dad...

...the Sierra Club would be proud.

Here's a picture of the lava rock.
It's funny it was called "Devil's Playground," because that is exactly what it looked like. Huge black and gray lava rock formations, I could almost see a little red devil mischieviously prancing around it!

This is a natural ice cave which is located in part of a collapsed lava tube. It's really weird, once you get about half way down the steps the air immediately drops to 30 degrees even though it was easily 85 degrees that day. The water is frozen solid and over 3500 years old. Settlers used to use it as a refrigerator.

It got really cold if you stayed down there too long!

At the end of our two hikes, Mom, Emily, and I decided to give...

...a try. Okay, we weren't really panning for gold, just pretty rocks and arrowheads. It was fun!

Here's a cute picture of Emily and my Dad on the way down from the volcano.