no words, only footsteps

He is Risen!  Easter on the road meant people searched for hidden chocolate eggs in an unfamiliar room of new hiding places.  Today, we set off to hike instead of drive. We spent the first part of the day visiting two of the 29 volcanic craters for this area of New Mexico, along with an ice cave ending. Words and images can not describe the vastness of what we walked alongside today. We were blessed with a great day as a family on foot. In total we walked close to 5 miles and are all a bit red from the sun and or fun. As I type, and look out the window, the legendary sunset is dampened by clouds. An intentional early bedtime for us all- is not without intermittent giggles and whispers as we prepare to head off tomorrow to Arizona stopping by the petrified forest and a bit more of historic route 66.

-Joseph-

to our left is the outside wall of the crater, everything underfoot are lava rocks, its a new sounding gravel...

after a 1.2 mile spiral hike, we made it to the top and paused, the image below may not show scale well but end to end this crater was 1/3 mile wide 

on our way down Isaiah stopped to count the rings of this Ponderosa Pine and gave up after 110...The bark shown below is fire resistant and has a hint of vanilla when you mell it up close, which was a bit of aromatherapy to keep us inspired to keep on hiking..

Today we went hiking at a lava field and Joshua spotted a lizard. So Joshua and I tried to catch it and it ran under a medium sized rock. We knew neither of us could catch it alone so Joshua picked up the rock and I quickly grabbed it. It was the first lizard I had ever held in my life. It was black with some brown and grey streaks. On its belly it was white with two blue streaks and two blue dots on it neck. At first you could tell it was startled the lizard probably thought that he would never get caught. Then I let Dad hold him and he ran up his arm and hissed and opened up his mouth as if to bite you but his mouth could not do any damage. I was so excited too catch my first lizard with the help of my brother.

-Samuel-

the green you see in these two images are a form of Arctic algae that was found here as well when explorers first found this ice cave.  The air was dense and cold, a nice ending to the first part of the day.