Valley of the Fires

I camped out at The Valley of the Fires National Recreation Area northwest of Carrizozo NM. This park is just off US 380. I had never heard of this place and had no idea what the facilities were like, but was pleasantly surprised. It is a beautifully well-maintained park in a lava flow area. According to this website, "the park has many square miles of buckled, twisted lava, part of an extensive flow up to 50 meters thick and over 45 miles long that originated from several volcanoes, including one vent now known as Little Black Peak, 9 miles northwest of the dusty, windswept town of Carrizozo. The lava is called the Malpais (Spanish for 'badlands'), a name also given to several other flows in New Mexico..."

My neighbors were a nice couple in an aging Chevy camper van who indicated that they were professional campers who spent the winters in Scottsdale AZ making enough money to live in campgrounds during the other 9 months of the year. Their names were Lea and Barry, and they shared their coffee with me. I didn't bring any coffee supplies with me. They were good company, free spirit types a little younger than me, and pretty bright. Barry knew what "Malpais" meant. I should have taken a picture of them, but I forgot, so I made a small sketch of them the way I'll always remember them: with coffee.

This was a great place to camp, but I'll bet it's unbearable in the summer.