This day started off with us 4 getting up bright and early to meet our tour guide at the jeep tour office at 6:45 a.m. to check-in. We met our guide and stepped on in to the pink jeep with another couple. It’s about a 45 minute drive to the trail that we will walk to get to the ancient ruins. Our guide was very interesting, telling us information about the town, being funny, and talking with all of us. The off-road experience was fun in the jeep being bumped all around. We laughed a lot. The scenery was spectacular. The red rock mountains all around us. He would mention the names used for the mountains like “snoopy rock”, “the 3 wise men”, “the bell” and so on. It’s cool how you can see ow they look like different things. It was a cool morning but it heated up pretty good during our walk to the ancient ruins. It was so quiet on this walk. It was about a 30 minute walk to the ruins. Our guide did an amazing job showing us all the ruins and time frames. Great job. The pictures tell an amazing story. I love learning about the ancient ruins and the Synaquas. Another 45 minute jeep ride back through the red rock mountains. Didn’t want this to end. What a great 3 hours we had.
Heading to the Lava Caves in Flagstaff. The headlamps that we bought from Walmart in Cottonwood, AZ were for this part of our trip. So we head the 30 minutes to the turn off to the Lava Cave. After the turn off it is another 20 minutes of bumpy and I mean BUMPY road to the cave. That was a rough one, but we made it. The cave is around 40 degrees in the summer so they suggest you where some warm clothes. Some of us heeding the warning but others…….so we don’t know where the cave is, no signs, so I wait until I actually see people coming from any direction, so we go that way. Umm ok, we walked a lot, and finally found it. It’s such an experience walking through forests and coming right on top of it. So there’s a big round rock covered hole way down below. The only way down is to climb big boulders down into the mouth of the cave. Once you reach the hole you start to feel the coolness and would need your headlamps on or flashlight. (It’s hard to use your flashlight as you need both hands to hold and grab onto the boulders.) It’s a pretty cool experience. The inside of the cave is around 1 mile to end and back. Everyone seems to stay around the front taking pictures and not moving very fast at all. At the mouth of the cave I turned around and climbed my way back out. I watched as some people had their dogs and would make them try to go down in there It was hard on their paws trying to walk on those boulders. So we finally get everyone back out, and they all enjoyed the experience.
