One of our day trips was to Capulin Mountain Volcano National Historic Site. Mileage wise, it was only about 50 miles: drive time was about 2 hours because the roads were either horrible or you had to go around.
One thing we noticed while drive in OK and NM is that there are cattle guards in the middle of a state highway. Very strange and odd. We did find a Dairy Queen in Clayton, NM and discovered that many of our favorites are a TX only thing (steak sandwiches and steak fingers). They are however much better at making mint chocolate chip blizzards than they are at home.
To visit Capulin Volcano, you drive up to the parking area and then walk down into the vent.....
We all walked down the vent trail. We saw many pretty flowers, a few native bees, and heard a deer moving in the bushes. We even had an airplane fly over and it felt like we could almost see the passengers in the windows.
The 7877 ft elevation is at the parking area. We go under that to the vent and then way above that on the rim trail. Only the older 4 and Craig walked the rim trail.
The rim trail is a steeper path than the vent trail and it's not listed as handicap accessible so we opted for the younger ones to stay behind and finish their ranger book. The following pictures were taken by S who took a camera class this summer and is thoroughly enjoying my big camera.
This is one of my favorite that S took. I'm very glad she went and not me - when I enlarge these pictures, I start to feel a little of the fear of heights coming out.
The "mountains" all around are also shield volcanoes. The entire landscape is covered in lava flows. Many of the areas are now covered in trees. However, some of the mountain tops aren't. It's all a very pretty sight - I still prefer my green trees and rain at home.
Here, you can see the van in the parking area and just the the left and below it, there is a shelter area where N and H sat and completed their Ranger booklets.
The following are my pictures with my phone camera - we were able to get one of the guys walking the rim. And then their last few steps down the trail, which they actually did backwards.
A panorama of the area around the volcano - from the parking lot
After finishing their Ranger books, all 3, H,N, and Z, were "sworn in" as Jr Rangers.
Our route home, we decided to take the least mileage route. We should have taken the most mileage route because at least we could drive 55mph instead of 5mph. We were on a state highway and this picture is of the nice section. There were some points of it where we it was worse than my driveway.
One thing we noticed while drive in OK and NM is that there are cattle guards in the middle of a state highway. Very strange and odd. We did find a Dairy Queen in Clayton, NM and discovered that many of our favorites are a TX only thing (steak sandwiches and steak fingers). They are however much better at making mint chocolate chip blizzards than they are at home.
To visit Capulin Volcano, you drive up to the parking area and then walk down into the vent.....
We all walked down the vent trail. We saw many pretty flowers, a few native bees, and heard a deer moving in the bushes. We even had an airplane fly over and it felt like we could almost see the passengers in the windows.
The 7877 ft elevation is at the parking area. We go under that to the vent and then way above that on the rim trail. Only the older 4 and Craig walked the rim trail.
The rim trail is a steeper path than the vent trail and it's not listed as handicap accessible so we opted for the younger ones to stay behind and finish their ranger book. The following pictures were taken by S who took a camera class this summer and is thoroughly enjoying my big camera.
This is one of my favorite that S took. I'm very glad she went and not me - when I enlarge these pictures, I start to feel a little of the fear of heights coming out.
The "mountains" all around are also shield volcanoes. The entire landscape is covered in lava flows. Many of the areas are now covered in trees. However, some of the mountain tops aren't. It's all a very pretty sight - I still prefer my green trees and rain at home.
Here, you can see the van in the parking area and just the the left and below it, there is a shelter area where N and H sat and completed their Ranger booklets.
The following are my pictures with my phone camera - we were able to get one of the guys walking the rim. And then their last few steps down the trail, which they actually did backwards.
A panorama of the area around the volcano - from the parking lot
After finishing their Ranger books, all 3, H,N, and Z, were "sworn in" as Jr Rangers.
Our route home, we decided to take the least mileage route. We should have taken the most mileage route because at least we could drive 55mph instead of 5mph. We were on a state highway and this picture is of the nice section. There were some points of it where we it was worse than my driveway.
Some of the road was pretty and had beautiful rock formations.
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