El Malpais, New Mexico -- September 2023

El Malpais, NM -- September 14, 2023

We left Page early. I drove first and the Navajo roads had crazy, slow speed limits. All the locals seemed to be going a normal speed, and I was going a speed limit. Local plates, no tickets; non-local plates, tickets? I was passed by a cop on a one lane, each way, road. I was happy when we made it to a road with a normal speed limit. We had a 5 hour drive and lost an hour due to a time change.  

I brought Popeye's coupons that came to our house, not sure how widely accepted they were. We stopped at Popeye's and were able to use a 2 eat coupon and got gas before going to El Malpais. There were two roads that went to the park off of I-40. One really needed a 4x4, so we took the other, stopping at the visitor center. There was another person at the visitor center when we got there, not too busy. So, we stopped and talked to the Ranger for a bit. Before leaving, asking it was going to rain, he thought no, but it did while we were hiking. The visitor center was at exit 85, and the road that we could take was 117 at exit 89, south.  


We stopped and did the short hike to La Ventana Arch.


Then we drove to the end of the park to hike Lava Falls Trail. It rained a little when we were driving, but stopped when we arrived at the trailhead. We were trying to get to good pictures of the deep lava cracks. This is before it started raining. Then it rained, and we put on our raincoats. Travis's got caught his, frog togs, on a low shrub and ripped it. I was thinking of how I could fix it, and he noted that he wanted duct tape. So, it duct tape was, which looks silly--hehe. 




After the park, we stayed in Moriarty, NM (the Sherlock Holmes bad guy, so loved the name). We were seeing really bad reviews for motels in Albuquerque, so we booked in Moriarty, past it. I have since seen Albuquerque on the list of one of Americas most dangerous cities. We stayed at another Motel 6, but it was not quite as good as the first one, but fine. 

Next up...Palo Duro Canyon and home


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Location: El Malpais National Monument, 1900 E Santa Fe Ave, Grants, NM 87020, USA

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