Perlite trail

 

On January 2 (Nora's birthday) the Mannings hiked the Perlite trail with us. It took a few wrong turns to find the right trail.  Above was our first wrong turn.  Julie still played out a little picnic while the kids explored and Andrew and James tried to figure out the right road.

After talking to DJ, Andrew got us back on track and parked in the right area, but then we took the wrong trail.  It did lead us to this cool cave which was fun.

Finally we found the right trail!  Above is a mini mining area before we kept going and found the main one.

Here you can mine for obsidian, or apache tears, which is volcanic glass.  We brought hammers and tools just for this and the kids all came home with some obsidian.  We even saw a wild cat in the distance on the way, likely a bobcat.  So cool.

Arizona is just so beautiful!  Just gotta love that dessert landscape.  I vaguely remember my dad taking me here, or somewhere similar, when I was a kid so it was amazing taking me own kids and making memories with cousins.