10-16-07

Our first stop on this morning was: Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

This was a fascinating place as well.
The top of this volcano blew off in the eruption. There were more than a billion tons of lava, cinders, and ash spread over 800 square miles of northern Arizona.
The top of the volcano now looks like a crater and I didn't get a great picture of it. I do have a postcard picture and I should have scanned that in.

Here is a picture of some of the lava fields. It was much better to see in person.

It's amazing to see plants grow back in this area. The lava is amazing and if you've ever seen the sand dunes on the way to San Diego from here then imagine that being lava rock instead. Wow!

We walked along a trail and learned about certain things at predeterminded spots.

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How this ties into our Native American study is that they found Pit Houses under some of the lava area. These pit houses were made by the Indians that lived in the area.

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It was tempting to pick up a piece of lava rock to bring home but that temptation was squelched when I read some letters sent in by people that had taken a rock home with them. Those people had actually sent the rocks back and told about all the bad luck they had experienced since taking the rock! Very interesting.

Here is a picture of the group before we got into the park.
(Autumn is the pink jacket/hood, Patrick is the orange one, Jessica has on the hat on the left side and you know where Ryan is :) ).