First we tried to find a road to Ute Mountain, a large shield volcano, which is behind our house. That proved more complicated than we anticipated, so we headed deep into the southern San Luis Valley to explore other neighborhood volcanoes.
The first dormant volcano we visited was Mesita Volcano, which was turned into a quarry for scoria and volcanic rock, but has been abandoned for some time. It was fun. We got to walk around and pick up the super light lava rocks.
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| Scoria pile at Mesita quarry/volcano |
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| The center of the volcano and mined area |
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| Collecting lava rocks. In the background on the left is Ute Mtn, and on the right is San Antonio Mtn (shield volcanoes). |
We found another small dormant volcano up near highway 142 and the Rio Grande river called Culebra Volcano. We did not explore the remnants of the blown volcano though as my ears were too cold from our last expedition. (Beautiful day with a cold wind.) We plan to return when the weather warms a little more.
We headed over to Antonito to pick up some locally made tamales and drove around in the valley near San Antonio Mountain, another very large shield volcano.
At home we are working on paper mache volcanoes that we can "explode" with baking soda and vinegar.
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| paper mache volcanoes |
I think we are all enjoying these home school field trips. School without walls...is awesome!
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