Day 12 - Continued


We drove until we got to US 20, a road we spend a lot of time on in this trip. Our destination is Craters of the Moon National Monument. This is an area of fairly recent (at least in geological time) volcanic activity, and at one time it was thought that it looked much like the surface of the moon. ( Astronauts actually trained here before the moon landings).

I wanted to get there before the visitor's center closed (a thirst, not for knowledge, but for postcards :P), and we were making good time until right before the main entrance. Right there we were stopped for half an hour due to road construction. Luckily we still made it in time.

Here we are walking across the moonscape:
Craters of the Moon

Here is a closeup of some of the rock. As the signs reminded us, there's only two kinds of lava: aa and pahoehoe. We had a lot of fun saying that. Aa is sharp and spikey, pahoehoe is smoother and can be ropey.
Lava Rock

We decided, somewhat unwisely, to race to the top of this cinder cone. (Needless to say, I didn't win). We were back at high altitudes again and we were all exhausted at the top:
Cinder Cone

Here is the view from the top of the cinder cone. It was lava flows as far as the eye could see:
Lava Fields

You can see rain in the distance, luckily it did not rain much while we were there.

We went to another cinder cone, here is the inside of the cone:
Cinder Cone

Nearby was a cone that had a deep hole in it. It was deep enough that snow from the winter was still preserved down inside. It is called appropriately enough the "snow cone":
Snow Cone

We then went to the caves area of the park. These are actually old lava tubes, and we went into three of them. Disturbingly you could see a few areas where the roofs of old caves had collapsed in nearby. Here is a warning sign:
Dangerous Pit

We first went into Indian Tunnel, which was the largest, and had a partially collapsed roof so you were mostly in the open. Here I am, with someone looking very much like Lara Croft behind me (Don't ask):
Indian Tunnel

We then went into Boy Scout Cave. This is an ice cave; it is so cold inside there is ice there year round. It was pitch dark, we could only see by flashlight (It was much more like real caving, very neat). Here is a picture of some rocks inside, with ice on them:
Boy Scout Cave

We also went inside of Beauty Cave, which was just as dark but had less ice.

It started to get late, so we left and pushed on toward civilization. We got to the town of Arco and stopped to eat at a diner, called Pickle's Place:
Pickle's Place

We managed to order practically every kind of potato-based side they had with supper (I got tater-tots). Also in the restaurant was the family of the winning pitcher from the College World Series. They had driven straight through from Omaha, stopping only briefly in Yellowstone. They had a disturbing story about their being no rooms anywhere nearby; this is important for later.

Arco as it turns out was the first city ever lit by nuclear power. They are located right next to the Idaho National Labs. We started driving, hoping to find a room in Idaho Falls... but since it was summer tourist season in Yellowstone there were no rooms anywhere near it, so we turned around and instead stayed in a nice motel in Arco.

--- Ending in Arco, Idaho ---


Continue on to Day 13