We were still unable, despite all our good intentions, to leave New Mexico! The motto of the State really seems to haunt us: Land of Enchantment, although some of the locals call it Land of Entrapment. But we are still enchanted and don’t feel the danger of being trapped yet, the RV was still moving west.

Driving through beautiful red rock formations, visiting a couple more abandoned gas stations and motels i.e. in Budville we made it to El Malpais National Monument where we crawled through a lava tube, not easy with two cameras and a scared dog that needed to be lifted down off some of the larger rocks by Martin.

After this sweat inducing endeavour we first climbed up the Bandera Volcano and looked into the immense crater and then had a chance to cool down at a nearby ice cave which has 20 feet thick ice all year  round. Gusty wither winds and snow replenish the water which forms into ice and remains this way because of the rule, warm air rises, cold air falls. Summer heat never enters the cave. Ice cream time was to follow, which we really deserved since we were dusty, sweaty, tired and hungry.

The only flop of this great day, driving through forests in the 7.000 feet range in brilliant weather with great sights was the fact that we arrived at 5:15 pm at El Morro National Monument for 1/2 a mile hike to the petroglyphs depicting 700 years of human activity when the trail closed at 5 pm. We were so disappointed that we even refused to watch the movie. We retraced our steps back to Grants and stayed at a lovely KOA RV site with free breakfast and optional home cooked dinner delivered to the camp site at a reasonable price, what a treat!!! Turkey Dinner with all the fixings, HMMM!