Bandera Volcano and Ice cave.

Tuesday, Jarrett's Dad had an appointment in Gallup New Mexico at the hospital and then the rest of the day off, so since El Morro was on the way, and Gallup is a good 30 minutes away, we tagged along.  And of course took lots of pictures.

Strange sign that was on the wall in the cafeteria.  

The cafeteria was totally old school looking.  But it had old school prices.  bagels for $1 and milk for 25 cents!!!! sweet.

 After Jarrett's Dad got a check up on his knee, we headed off.  We stopped and ate at the  El Morro National Park picnic area, got our papers for Junior Ranger certification and then drove up the road a little ways and visited Bandera Volcano and Ice cave.  The land of Fire and Ice. Click HERE for more information.

 We were greeted with chilies

An old gas pump

 And a creepy native american statue with sunglasses and touristy clothes.  When Max saw it he promptly tried pulling his clothes off and said "I wonder what he looks like with these clothes off."

Hmm I don't know.

This is the view coming out of the bathrooms.

First we hiked up to the volcano

This is looking down into the volcano.  Not very exciting or at all like I thought.  I guess I was just thinking spouting lava and fire and brimstone.  But cool nonetheless.

Then we hiked to the ice cave

The ice cave was in the middle of the desert and to get down to it, you had to climb down about 50 stairs.  It never gets above 31 degrees.  It was really cold.  The ice is apparently 20 feet thick and is green because of arctic algae. Up until the 1940's people used to mine it.

  After the ice caves we stopped at the gift shop (with the creepy statue) and outside of it, they had bags of dirt and gravel  ($10) that had gems hidden it and you had to pan for it.  Some people there felt sorry for us I guess.  Maybe it was because the kids kept following them around and asking them what they were doing and "can I see?" but they gave them some smaller gems that they had found.  The kids were ecstatic.