Trek to Painted Cave

On May 4th we hiked 10 MILES!! We took an uncommon route through some burned portion of the national forest into Bandelier National Monument. For some reason we were the only ones on the trail...It was actually super beautiful even though it was burned. We could just imagine what the forest would look like before the fire. Stan had charted our course out on a topo map, so off we went. 

One of my favorite views, Stan ahead and me behind following his lead.

The majority of the hike was up on top of mesas throughout the forest. We would occasionally go down into a canyon only to climb up on top of the next mesa over. It made it so that we could see forever! So beautiful!!

beautiful cactus flowers

Here is Painted Cave. We had a great view from up on top of our mesa and were amazed at the drawings from hundreds of years ago.

That's the Painted Cave in between us right by my head.

On the mountain across from us, you can see the trail. In the morning, looking out that way, I thought "there is no way I'm walking all the way over there!" In the afternoon, coming back, I had the same thought looking from over there to where I am standing taking the picture. Miracles happen.

First camping trip :)

Well, I've given up on catching up. Now and then I'll throw in some older posts, but I just have to start where we're at and move on and up.

We went camping this last weekend! It was so fun AND wonderful AND beautiful AND made both of us completely excited for future trips! (which are already on our calendar)

We got to our camp spot a couple after dark but were able to set up just fine. We felt like we were living the high life with our delicious steaks and potatoes for dinner.

The night was SOOO cold but we were glad to have super comfy air mattress to at least make it comfortable.

We had a DELICIOUS breakfast of breakfast burritos that of course had green chile on them!

We took off about eleven and went for a scouting drive in the mountains looking for great places to do our hiking/camping adventures without trespassing. :) It was a beautiful day!

This is only about a third of the pictures I took...I went a little picture happy. I LOVE our new camera :)

This was the funniest sign. I tried to upload it for our blog background...hopefully soon. Ironically, this road where this sign was was WAY better than most roads we drive on.