Valley of Fires

Before we came into north/central New Mexico I'd never even thought about there being volcanos and lava rock.  I think different now. We stayed at the Valley of Fires Rec Area just north of Carrizozo, NM for about a week. It sits right in the middle of a 44 mile long lava bed. The lava came from two vents which covered that part of the valley up to 150 feet deep! The campground is on an island surrounded by the lava flow.


When we first picked out a camp site it was on such a hill that Mom said she didn't know if we could even leval the camper, I was doubtful too. We got it though! The front of the camper was almost touching the ground. :)  The sites are very nice.  Each one has it's own ramada and picnic table along with amazing views of the surrounding lava field, valley, and mountains.

One of the first days we were there we went to Lincoln. Lincoln is where the famous "Lincoln War" took place. Billy the Kid and the Regulators fought their ruthless battle in and around town, ending in a daring jail break by Billy the Kid who dissapeared afterwards.  In the picture on the right I'm standing by the bullet hole in the courthouse wall made by Billy the Kid shooting his guard as he escaped.  After Billy the Kid got away, it is said he either was shot by the sheriff or escaped into Mexico where he lived the rest of his life. Lincoln is one of our favorite old west towns because it's secluded, rarely busy, and has such an interesting history. (Below is a picture of us sitting on the old hotel's front porch)

We also had fun hiking the Valley of Fires nature trail and exploring the lava. There's lots of little caves and "sinkholes" in the lava. The lava rock is razor sharp in some places, I had to watch my steps so I didn't fall.

The kids had fun at the Carrizozo city park (very top left). We went there a couple times. That park is whereTytus figured out how much fun a slide can be. :)

One day we decided to go for a drive up in the nearby mountains and have a picnic. We had a great time hiking around and having our picnic (picture on left) on top of a mountain. Then we went into Nogal Canyon to see what was up there. We found a great grassy spot alongside a pretty little stream (picture on right). I think we spent about three hours hiking around and playing in the little patch of snow that was still there. We had a long snowball fight which ended in Mom stuffing snow down the back of Hanna's shirt. :D It was a lot of fun. A few days later we went back and spent almost five hours at our little mountain paradise. The snow was gone but we found other things to do. Josephine was scared to walk down the steep bank to the stream so Hanna and I built her stairs. We dug into the bank and placed stones her step distance apart, and made a little landing at the bottom. To finish it off we used little rocks to write "Josie's Steps". :) The kids loved sending their little boats down stream. The boats included a gatorade can, a basketball, and a small jelly jar. One of us would wait down stream with a long wooden dowel to stop the boats from getting away. Dad and I also drove up the mountain a ways until we got to a place where the stream flowed across the road.  We could see Nogal Peak not too far above us. There must be a mountain lion up where we were, because first we found a cave with a turkey ripped apart inside, then some cat pee on a tree, then an elk leg, and then what looked like mountain lion tracks going up a hill. Dad kept his .45 close.

We also went to the almost ghost town of White Oaks. It's way off in a valley at the base of some mountains. We walked around the old two story school house and drove up to a large victorian looking house on a hill. There is also a big safe which was blown open by dynamite in the 1920's and robbed. I wouldn't have wanted to have my life savings in there. :)

One day we went down to Ruidoso and checked out the Hubbard Museum of the American West. We'd been to the museum about eight years ago and stayed in the condo right next to it with our grandmother. Quite a bit had changed. The virtual horse racing game was gone but in it's place they put a big kids area. Naomi, Gabriel, Josephine, and even Tytus loved the adobe house, chuck wagon, camp fire, life-size horse, and library. Naomi was in the adobe house (picture on left) almost the whole time pretending she was Josephina (an American Girl doll), Gabriel was on the horse almost the whole time roping the pretend steer, Josephine loved the campfire with it's pots and fake food to cook, Tytus crawled everywhere including around and under the wagons in the next door exhibit. :D  All the kids loved the old mechanical chuckwagon and bronco.  They sure aren't like the ones in Wal-Mart now.  These jerked back and forth so hard you'd think it would give a kid whiplash (picture above right)! We spent about five hours there looking around at the many different old-west exhibits and playing with the kids in between.

Valley of Fires Rec Area is definitly a cool place to stop if you're ever in the area. Carrizozo, the mountains, the lava field, the Hubbard museum and Lincoln are amazing places to go and the lava field is a good place to see it all from.

Check back in soon.  At the next place I'm going to be writing about (where we are now) Dad and I kayak across a very windy lake, I find a baby owl, and we get to see the bomb that ended WWII. :-)