After a good dinner, and a couple of beers, we headed down I-25 to Raton, at the CO-NM border. What this description papers over was that Raton Pass was a big trading route and in the late 1800's, this dude who owned the land there put up a toll booth and charged $1.50 for goods and people to pass. A pretty good business. The city fathers are still at it as they were able to get the last (for a while) casino licence in NM.
Raton was a good stopping place for two reasons. One, is that it is more or less halfway between Boulder and our big destination (Carlsbad Caverns). Second, there's a very cool volcano (no pun intended) nearby.
The Capulin volcano has two main hiking trails. The first is around the top and is roughly 1 mile in circumference. The other is a short, but steep, trail that leads to where the vent was. The great thing about the former is that you can see all across New Mexico, even into Oklahoma. You can also see the ridges in the land where the lava flowed when Capulin blew its top. Apparently, the NM lava fields cover an area the size of Massachusetts (poor HB had to LEARN on his vacation).
After the volcano, we grabbed some lunch and then headed to Carlsbad.
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