I Heart New Mexico

Well, we've arrive safe and sound in San Francisco, but I'm going to pick up where I left off in...New Mexico.
It is beautiful there, and out of all the states we visited, it is the one I would most like to return to. I was amazing by the landscape...red, rocky outcroppings, trees, canyons popping up around corners. We stopped quickly in Albuquerque (is that how you spell that?) to eat some tasty burritos, then stopped at "the cave of fire and ice." We had to drive 20 miles in the backcountry of New Mexico until we got onto Indian land. The "fire" part is an ancient volcano crater, a half a mile across. You hike up and up until you can look over this giant, dizzying hole. The path we walked on was covered with lava, and you can see the path the lava took 10,000 years ago from up there.
The "ice" part was a cave, just 30 feet or so below the surface, where it never gets above 31 degrees. It is part of a collapsed lava tube. The ice on the bottom is twenty feet thick and would be even thicker except the people in that area used to chop blocks out of it to keep their food cold! No one knows how it started, but the ice that's already there helps it stay that cold.
We saw some little lizards on the way back and learned about the trees in the area, which are very cool, though prone to being hit by lightning because of the iron in the lava rocks around them.
The Zuni Pueblos were just 30 minutes away, but we didn't have time to go see them. That will be number one on my list for when we return!
We stayed in Gallup that night. All in all, wonderful people in New Mexico.
Tomorrow: Canyon, Grand.