Idaho and Volcanos

 We had a wonderful, but altogether too quick visit with Robin and Lisa.  Roland did get to say hi to Pete before he left for work, too.  They had just returned from a student trip to Europe, so we exchanged traveling stories.  Thanks you Robin for letting us stay...and for making you late to work today! 

 Much of our traveling for the last two days has been littered with Oregon Trail signs.  It was a long trip via auto...hard to imagine having to find your way without a GPS or roads

 The big stop today was at Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho.  The landscape was described, in 1923 as like the surface of the moon as seen through a telescope.  The craters on the actual moon are mostly the result of meteorite impacts where these at Craters of the Moon are of volcanic origin.  We were told that there were alot of wild flowers this time of year, but were not prepared for the diminutive nature of these flowers, including my favorite, the dwarf monkeyflower.

 These little white ones are dwarf buckwheat and aren't more than 3" high. A very different kind of wildflower meadow in some pretty inhospitable terrain.

 We hiked a short, but steep trail up to Inferno Cone, where there was an amazing view of the cinder cones and more distant scenery.

 The we took a 1 hour ranger led walk to Indian Tunnel Cave.   It is a lava tube, a lava flow tht hardened on the outside, thus insulating the lava inside so it still flowed, and when all the lava was eventually pushed through a cave remained. 

 This shows a hot collapse of lava - collapses being the fate of all lava tubes, but over long periods of time. 

 Here we are inside Indian Cave - a well lit area, from various sky lights that naturally formed. 

 We are looking up at a formation called a cupola - a round, smooth area, shown below.  It is an area where gas pressure built up and formed these bubble like structures. 

 All day we saw these historic and geological landmark signs. 

 Another drive in restaurant that harkens back to years ago.  Sadly, they no longer make their own root beer.  We had supper here.

 We arrived in West Yellowstone, MT at about 5:30 and enjoyed walking around the tiny town.  We went to Send It Home - a shop that has yarn, among other things.  I got a local bison yarn and some sock yarn and some silk from a local dyer.

We had dessert at a cute little ice cream shop.  This is Roland's Huck Finn Sundae.  It is vanilla ice cream with huckleberries mixed in, then topped with a huckleberry syrup, whipped cream and nuts.    All their ice cream starts with hard vanilla or chocolate and you have mixed in whatever you want.  I had a serving about half this size with vanilla, heath bars and caramel.  I couldn't resist the candy shop and got some salt water taffy for the road.

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Tomorrow we will be up early to head into Yellowstone for a bit, then through Grand Teton to Jackson Hole, WY and back to our cabin in Yellowstone.  They don't have wifi, so it will be a couple days before another post.