Saturday in Flagstaff, we went on a hike in Sunset Crater about 15 miles out of town. That was interesting. The crater’s a cinder cone and surrounding lava fields from a volcanic eruption that happened only 1000 years ago, which is pretty recent for geologic events. So we hiked the relatively easy trail near the base of the cone and looked at everything. Because there’s not a whole lot of rainfall, there aren’t that many plants, and the rich volcanic soil that you see in Hawaii just isn’t there.

So then we went back to town, went shopping, and then went out to dinner. After dinner, we went to the Lowell Observatory, which is where they discovered Pluto in 1930. That was kind of interesting. We walked all around the grounds and looked at the exhibits. There must have been a body of water nearby, though, because there were mosquitoes all over the place. It wasn’t quite as bad as Minnesota in the summer, but it was really the first time I’d experienced mosquitoes in Arizona.

More later.