We started our morning off with a swim and a slide. The boys were disappointed the slide has not been cleaned or assembled properly, and is a little slow. It has hard-water deposits and rust spots where it is fastened together. But they enjoyed it, nonetheless.
We quickly left Montana (West Yellowstone is in Montana, Old Faithful and East Yellowstone is in Wyoming), and headed for Idaho. This sign also identifies our third and final crossing of the Continental Divide.
Traveling down the state of Idaho, we learned that Rigby is considered the home of television, having been the home of Philo Farnsworth, a local inventor who was dubbed the "Father of Television" for his contributions to research. Also, the town of Arco is the first town to be powered by atomic energy!
We learned an amazing fact about birch trees along the way. One birch tree will sucker into an entire forest, essentially cloning itself, and connected underground by a contiguous root system. Thus, some of the Rocky Mountain birch forests are the oldest and largest living organism on earth!
We headed for Craters of the Moon, inconventiently located from everywhere. This National Monument, another Calvin Coolidge site, last saw volcanic flows around 2000 years ago, and is the northern end of the Great Rift, a 400-mile long series of 63 volcanoes.
Although the volcanic landscape is bleak, we were surprised at the variety and number of wildflowers in the park. The syringa (shown here) were in bloom everywhere. The ranger told us they got 6 inches of rain in June, shattering all records of rainfall for the area. Even the sagebrush was green and verdant.
Although temperatures can reach 150 degrees on the lava landscape on a really hot day, we had 75 degrees and a good breeze, which made our tour very hospitable.
Some trees managed to eek out a way to live in the lava, beginning the process of terraforming, transforming the environment. We found many grown in twisted, wind-blown shapes, such as this snag that didn't make it.
In places, crust had broken away, falling into a caldera. Some of the original caldera wall was still standing.
Another wildflower picture. These are monkeyflowers, and they formed a beautiful pink-red carpet everywhere the landscape held a little soil.
This hill, known as Inferno Cone, rose a thousand feet above the landscape. Jeremy and Forrest can be seen at the top. Ian also climbed up the hill. Forrest and Jeremy ran halfway up, and climbed the rest. Forrest will feel the aftereffects far longer than Jeremy!
Jeremy is standing on the highest spot, with Mt. Hood somewhere in the distant background. We couldn't see it from where we stood.
The tops of these hills--even this bleak Inferno Cone--contain the original vegetation from this region. This one sports a thick coat of sagebrush. The name for these types of hills is kipuka.
We looked at these spatter cones, little mini volcanoes. They have a little snow in their interior, which impressed the boys.
Many strange formations are here. This one shows a double hole in the rocks, through which one can see the sky.
Lots of lava lexicon (lava lingo) comes from Hawaii. There are two main types of lava, A'a, or rough, pointy lava (shown here), and Pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy), which looks like petrified bark.
The picture below is an example of Pahoehoe lava.
We really wanted to make the mile hike to Indian Cave, which has steps down inside and is lit by sunlight filtering in through large holes in the roof. Unfortunately, we ran out of time. It was after 5 o'clock, and we still had 4.5 hours of driving time, plus dinner!
The southern Idaho landscape quickly transformed to sagebrush prairie, with no trees. However, in the distance can be seen a ranch surrounded by green fields, at the base of three hills.
Here is an example of one of those fields, with lush, green grass. They use a lot of irrigation here to combat the dry climate (and they've had all the recent rains).
Forrest took this sunset picture on the highway, as the sun set on Oregon.
We stopped at the border welcome center, where Forrest kissed the ground. Our welcome centers may not be as fancy the east coast ones, but they have free coffee!
We ended the day at the Best Western in Ontario, which hosts a 24-hour pool. We went for a swim and hot tub to end the day, at about 10:30 pm.
