circumnavigating the four corners

Uh, oops, have I really not posted here in almost a year? (I guess the pandemic is a decent excuse.) Anyway, I wanted to share some photos and blahblahwords from a couple of weeks of vacationing we did in the second half of March, and yes, it was a pandemic-proof vacation, mostly spent in our camper van, but with five days in a VRBO in Scottsdale that we shared with some friends of ours who drove down just for that bit. (They, and we, are fully vaccinated, so we had no qualms at all!) We hiked and biked in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and back to Colorado - around the Four Corners!

Here is a teaser (from the Navajo Rocks trails north of Moab, looking east toward the La Sals):



We started out by driving about five hours south and east into New Mexico, past Albuquerque, to the Valley of Fires Recreation Area (BLM) near the town of Carizozo. This is the site of what's called Malpais Lava Flow; approximately 5,000 years ago, an eruption from vents in the surface of the ground created a lava flow 44 miles long, 4-6 miles wide and 160 feet thick. It's one of the youngest lava flows in the continental United States, and there's a small campground on an "island" in the middle - and we snagged a spot! ( Read more and see some photos! )

These plus more photos at Flickr (album of 36 pictures from our trip), no blah blah