We drove the loop up through the Jemez, by Valle Grande, around Los Alamos and Santa Fe, and back to Corrales, which was a little over 200 miles. The photos are from the edge of Valle Grande, a large caldera in the Jemez Mountains. The caldera is 13.7 miles (22 Km) across and has lava domes, natural gas vents, and various wildlife, including cattle that graze in the large meadows. The highest point in the caldera is Redondo Peak at 11,253 feet (3,430 m) above sea level. A  fire in 2011 has left large areas of burned out forest full of bare, skeleton-like trees covering the hills. Rain started falling not long after we got to Valle Grande, but the sun continued to shine through breaks in the clouds giving us stripes of sunshine through the rain. As we drove east on Highway 4 past Bandelier National Monument, the rain came down so hard we had zero visibility, and nowhere to pull of the road to wait out the rain. Fortunately, the blinding rain didn't last long, but we had rain for nearly 100 miles from Valle Grande to Corrales.

Looking at the southern edge of the caldera through the rain from the entrance to the visitor's center with it near the base of the lava dome near the center of the photo.