Amboy crater, originally uploaded by DancingElephant.

K has been studying the Azoic period at pre-school. Yes, I did say "what's the azoic period?". This is when rocks formed and there was no life on earth. She has been studying volcanos and earthquakes.

So for show and tell this month, we actually have something cool to show (although don't tell the US National Parks service). She is taking a piece of lava I picked up from the Amboy crater several years ago when we drove California's famous Route 66.

Actually we had been going to drive up to the Colorado river along the border of California and Arizona. After several hours of looking at boring desert (sand, tumbleweed and yet more sand) I decided that it was too far to go so we turned around and tried to make our way back to Palm Springs via the shortest route, we ended up on Route 66.

The funny thing was that after looking at all the sand suddenly there was a black field along the side of the road. Craig and I were puzzled as to why it was black. A while later we saw this black mound and there was a pull in with a sign, so we stopped to read it.

It explained that it was the Amboy Crater and Lava Field. The crater sits in the middle of a 70 square kilometer field of lava, and just like the picture above some of the lava is loose and hence made its way home with me and will now make its way to the Montessori pre-school Azoic display.