Diary for Harry and Judy's RV Trip


Day 39-Craters of the Moon, ID

2011-05-25

Drove I-84 East to Mt. Home-all desert with mountains in the distance.  At Mt. Home we went NE on Rte 20 and immediately started to go up in altitude and see more mountains. The Sawtooth Mts. were on our left (very aptly named) and cow and horse farms all around us once we reached a plateau at about 5000 feet. Very sparse homesteads, must be really big ranches.

All of a sudden we start to see black lava beds all around us and then the Craters of the Moon Nat'l. Park.  After visiting the visitor's center and seeing the intro movie and exhibits we drove the 7 mile loop through lava beds, spatter cones, and volcanoes which started over 15,000 years ago from the "Great Rift", volcanic fissures across the Snake River that cover over 750,000 acres and 62 miles. They erupt every 2000 years or so and add more layers. It is really awesome and I guess what the moon surface looks like.  The white snow on some of the black mountains is really breathtaking. There's caves to explore and hiking trails but we only did about 1/2 mile walk up one of the spatter cones (the cinders at the top were almost orange) and around the campground.

Our original plan was to see the park and then continue driving about 20 more miles to a private campground but we decided to stay in the park's federal campground.  There's no hook-ups but it's only supposed to go down in the 40s tonight, we have propane for heat and cooking and hot water. The campground is immaculate, the picnic tables and grills look new, and there's "bear boxes" to store open food for tenters. How often will we ever get to sleep in the middle of a lava bed and the sites are situated right in the middle of everything.

Sat outside and watched chipmunks run around in and out of the lava and talked to a man we met from NC who's doing much the same as we are.  Very few campers here, it's still early.  Started to get windy and cold after the sun went down so inside we go.