Beauty from Ashes

So, the Friday before my internship started, Jarred took the day off! When we were here (in Sierra Vista visiting my grandparents) last Thanksgiving, Jarred wanted to go to the Chiricahua (cheer-i-cow-uh) National Monument. However, there was a massive fire in the mountains that previous summer (summer of 2011) that temporarily closed to park. So, the park has now reopened and we went for a visit...see!

So, according to the park services people, the Chiricahua's formed billions of years ago from a volcano that burned the rocks into these crazy formations (Idk if that's really how the story goes but there was something to do with a volcano!). Either way, I like to think that God just pointed his finger and went, "Bam!" and there were the Chiricahuas! Can you see them in the background?

On our journey, we hiked to the Grottoes. It was just a simple mile round-trip hike that led to rock formations that you could crawl around in.

We also saw a bunch of wildlife, mostly lizards (Jarred's favorite) and Mexican Jay's. Jarred fed the jay's some doritoes from our picnic so they followed us around all day!

do you see my lizard friend?

nom nom nom!!!

And, of course, everywhere around us there was beauty from ashes. All around us was evidence of last year's fire. Basically, on every mountainside there were no trees; some small shrubbery was growing back but certainly nothing else. The fire had destroyed everything...everything except the rocks. Perhaps that's another reason why we call God The Rock of our Salvation?

you can clearly see the blackened trees as evidence of the fire