Sights of New Mexico! (Warning: this is LONG!)

We have taken a few day trips out and about new mehico now & I've gotten behind on posting them. I am sorry to hold you all in suspense...I know everyone is so curious as to what one does when they live here. You will be surprised to know that most of the state, except for the city we happen to live in, is pretty green (relatively speaking, of course; plus it was monsoon season, so everything had a little bit of cheating)
By the end of July, when the summer was creeping to an end, we still hadn't seen anything here, so after work one Friday, I packed up the car with food, clothes & tent and we set out for Jemez Falls Campground, a little over an hour from here. When we got there past dark, the campground was full, so we continued on to Los Alamos & stayed in a hotel there. Micah was pretty excited because that town is basically a huge lab that was established for the Manhattan Project and is one of the main birthplaces of the atomic bomb. The next day we headed back to Jemez and did some hiking & exploring.

Saturday, July 21

I don't think the mushrooms around here are edible.
and a little tidbit: in Latvia (my mission) they have a commonly used phrase:
ej bekot: literal translation-go mushroom hunting
real translation-get lost
and people there really do go mushroom hunting! I was taught a few tricks....a Russian sister actually made soup from mushrooms she'd found when we were out on a prep day excursion

Modern camping: we hooked the griddle up to an inverter to the car battery and cooked lunch!
(except the griddle has way too high wattage, so it didn't work, but I liked the picture anyways)

This area has a lot of red rock just like Southern Utah

Las Conchas Trail

The very next weekend we actually went camping to the same area with some good friend, Jasmine & Eric. ( Micah & Eric work together)

(July 31-Aug 2)

On our way in....
It was actually really slippery & hard to climb up this sandstone stuff-Micah was the only one to make it around to that cave/hole.

A Lillrose Family-favorite game: Dirty Marbles (it's like aggravation for those of you from the 90's) We've gotten our friends addicted to it. The girls were on a team and we were kicking the boys' behinds, but the boys would not stop playing until they had won more games...so pretty much all Friday afternoon we played this game

On our way out...

we stopped at their friend's ranch...
This is probably more what you picture when you think on NM

We took a break for a few weekends, then on August 23rd, we headed to Santa Fe, which I believe is the oldest city in the US. We stopped right outside of town at an info booth, & they said we were 'lucky' because it was Indian Market that weekend (1500 vendors & 75000 tourists). Micah didn't really look forward to that much. He hates crowds & congestion. But right when we stepped out of the car, there was this cool used bookstore, which appeased him & saved us from a little rain.

An old church in the middle of town

Micah & a native

The Loretta Chapel: another old chapel

This is for AllyeB. She sent me an email a few weeks before of this mysterious chapel in Santa Fe. Here's the legend: in the mid 1800's, this chapel was built. When it was done, the nuns realized there were no stairs to the choir loft. They searched for people to build some, but everyone said to build stairs that weren't too steep, they'd have to use too much of the seating area & that they should use a ladder. The nuns prayed to St. Joseph (I'm assuming Mary's husband) - a carpenter. Then one day a man appeared with wood and bins to soak and curve it & built this staircase (originally it had no banisters), then left without pay. To this day, no engineer can fingure out how it stands, as there is no support pole, & the wood is not at all native to the NM. They suppose he was the St. Joseph himself that came & built it.

Micah going to confession

Notice the fame: Unsolved Mysteries!! (that show used to freak me out because they either had murders or hauntings on it...probably still does freak me out)

Needless to say, we didn't stay long, but we did see this on our way out:
The next weekend, August 30th, we went to the VLA, which means nothing to you or I, but is famous in Micah's world of Radioastronomy & is a huge research facility. It's about 2 hours from here & the entire movie of Contact is based around it (which we rented that weekend). It was actually kind of cool, even for me!

Micah & his new love, Jody Foster (star of Contact)

These things look like satellite dishes, but in this field, they're called Antenaes. There are 27 of the, they're on RR tracks & can be spread over a 26 mile range, this is the crazy part: they're each the size of a baseball diamond & I have NO idea what they're made of, but they weigh 230 TONS- EACH!

I just wanted you to see the average size of a bug down here. They're huge crusty things! (that's the tip of Micah's shoe. The bugs are like the size of half my pointer finger)

We had guests coming for Labor Day weekend in a few hours, so as we were hurrying home, we got distracted, because neither of us had ever been to a Ghost Town before, but we saw this little detour called Kelly Mines, Ghost Town, so we had to explore:

On the bottom left, you can see the mine shaft hole is still there...& deep!

On a sign there, it also stated that 'para-normal sitings are usual'....ghosts?
that kind of creeped me out

The next day we took our friends, Brandon & Erica & baby around Abq.

This is on top of Sandia Crest, which has a great view of the valley...except it was rainy & cloudy so you can't tell.

At the temple. We were SO excited to see soft grass that we had to take a break to sit on it.

Saying goodbye on Labor Day at Old Town.

Lastly!! This past weekend we went to see some volcanoes. See, on my flight here a few weeks after the wedding, I sat next to this guy that was visiting, since living here a few years. As we were getting close to the end, we flew over some volcanoes he pointed out, right on the West side of the city & told me they're a pretty cool hike. I'd been wanting to go, so I looked on the atlas & west of the city, there was marked "Bandera Volcanoes & Ice Caves"...so off we went. 1.5 hours later, I realized these were not the volcanoes I was thinking of, & they were not a State Park, so we had to pay a boatload to go in, & I forgot the camera, so I'll have to borrow. We also took a ride around this big loop and saw a geologic arch, some cool cliffs (that we climbed down a little bit further then most people & Micah loves to throw rocks, so when he started doing that, these other people ran to the edge of the cliff to check on us, because they thought someone had fallen over), we were hoping to see a rattlesnake, as there were warning signs, but we didn't see any.

El Malpais (the Badlands) was the area we were in:

It's hard to tell because there's growth on it, but you can see the black rock. There was a lot of this in the area from the hardened lava. It's really porous, too.

Here is the ice cave & volcano (which in itself ended up being a 1 hour walk round trip).

That's ice with algae in it at the bottom. It never gets above 31 degrees & you can seriously feel the temperature difference in 1 step; it is NOT a gradual change. Little tidbit for you: on our way up, we talked to a couple from CA that had just moved here & they told us their son is part of the Famous Hannah Montana recording group. So close to fame, we were!

To make the hike out of the volcano a little more exciting than walking back the way we came, we hiked up & OVER the rim. The path only leads you to 2/3 the way up the hole, but we wanted the view from the top! This thing is actually bigger than it looks in the pic, ps-thanks to their official website

And that my friends are the exciting summer adventures of Micah & Katy!