Sandstone Bluffs overlook at El Malpais National Monument, near Grants NM

It does not seem possible that my daughter Sarah and I experienced the many kinds of beauty we saw yesterday in just one day. We picked up a car at the Albuquerque Sunport at noon…after some negotiation, a nice little Kia Soul…and drove and down across New Mexico into Arizona. Along the way we drove through El Malpais National Monument which consists of amazing stand stone mesas and bluffs and one of the largest (and most recent) lava flow fields in North America. We stopped at La Ventana Natural Arch, then drove the rest of the length of the Malpais, and on out across a volcanic plateau (complete with cinder cones) clothed, in this wet summer, in so much green that it looked like the Yorkshire Downs more than New Mexico. On the plateau we were caught in amazing cloud burst thunderstorms with veils and faucets of rain, were stunned by vast expanses of sunflowers filling low spots and turning the foothills yellow, caught a rainbow, and then drove out across Arizona and down one side of the Salt River Canyon and up the other. Sunset found us on the west rim of the canyon. Amazing day.

This is early in the trip, at Sandstone Bluffs Overlook in El Malpais National Monument. That is Mount Taylor on the horizon to the right, one of the youngest volcanoes in the US, and author of the black lava flows you see to the left. The intricately carved edge of the sandstone mesas dominates the view.

Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 24mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.