What to do at the Valley of fire's ?
I put on my traveling shoes this morning and headed for the "Valley of Fires." I made it in a couple of hours without hurrying, found plenty of open campsites, settled in for a couple of days of relaxing, and hopefully an Internet connection that shows a lot more speed than the lackadaisical one at Santa Rosa State Park.
Like I've mentioned before, there's not a lot to do at the Valley of Fires, other than walking around through the campground, or on prepared trails through the lava flow. I'm sure the whole place would be a lot more interesting if there was a town buried under all this lava like Pompeii in Italy., But there's not —at least as far as we know —so it's just a black blanket of lava where one area looks the same as another.
But being here does make me wonder who's the federal worker who decided the volcano that produced all this lava is now dormant, and nothing to worry about. That alone gives me at least a little concern, considering how many federal workers I worked with that couldn't tell a lava flow from a tidal wave, and now I've got to trust their opinion that this nearby volcano is not going to blow its top in the middle of the night while I'm trying to sleep.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least that it was a government employee who told the citizens of Pompeii that Mount Vesuvius was nothing to worry about since it hadn't erupted for 2 1/2 million years and has shown no signs of erupting except every bird on the island flew away yesterday and great herds of sheep and goats were last seen swimming across the Mediterranean.
Theboondork...... at least I won't have to swim across the Mediterranean.
My boondocking spot at the Valley of fires. Its normally $15 a night to camp here, but since I have a federal geezer pass I can camp for half price.
The lava bed next to my boondocking spot.
This is a mountainous area that might have something to do with the volcanoes in this part of New Mexico.