Day 2

We headed out of Boise this morning flying along at the 80 MPH speed limit!  Love it!  No, actually, with a stiff cross wind going it was a little too fast.  We soon diverged from the highway to head up a two-lane road that lead us into south central Idaho.  Before driving to the Grand Tetons, we are taking a side trip to a place called Craters of the Moon National Monument.  

Craters of the Moon is an odd geographical section of the state that closely resembles the lunar landscape.  In fact, in the late 60’s astronauts came here to train for their missions to the moon.  The barren landscape is formed by large lava flows left here by explosion as recent as 2,000 years ago.  There are all kinds of features like caves and lava tubes and domes and cinder cones.  It was strangely barren and strangely beautiful.  The weird thing is that while driving through remote Idaho, the landscape so suddenly changes.  One minute it’s like a high dessert and the next, it’s black lava flows.  The other weird thing is that for all the lava around, there is no distinguishable, large volcano.  In fact the eruptions were all "fissure eruptions" or lava that pushed out through cracks in the earth's crust.

One of the caves - we didn't have flashlights so we couldn't explore the smaller caves.

An example of pahoehoe lava

Crazy lava fissures

 

This was a crazy large hill that was made from tiny bits of lava.  When the lava shoots up into the air and cools in the air, it forms tiny pieces.  These were blown by the wind and formed this hill, which in essence, is like a giant sand dune.

On top of the world!

Crazy beautiful clouds and sky

This was Cannon and Emmy's recreation of the scene in Lion King.  Think "Circle of Life"

After spending several hours here, we piled back in the van and headed on to the Grand Tetons where we were to meet up with my parents who flew into Salt Lake City and then drove up.  This was by far the longest part of the journey – particularly after I realized I made a wrong turn and added an extra hour to my journey.  We came in on the west side of the mountains and then had to drive up and over them.  The top afforded a great view down into Jackson Hole.

Looking down onto Jackson Hole

Swinging down and down and down the mountains, we drove through Jackson before entering into the Grand Teton National Park.  We are staying in the park in an original Jackson Hole homesteading log cabin.  It was certainly rustic, and when it was stated as a two-bedroom cabin, that’s exactly what they meant.  Two bedrooms and one bathroom and that was all!  Still it was a place to lay your head and it meant we were in the middle of the park.