Jim & John's Junket

Today was a truckin' and sighteein' day. We left Thayne, Wyoming and followed the Salt River. Along the Salt River we saw a bull moose prancing across a farmer's field. The Salt River joins the Snake River. Then we followed the Snake River for a couple of hours into Idaho Falls. Here we made an emergency PIT STOP for two new tow dolly tires. We both feel much better about the tires on the dolly as the old ones were worn badly. We thought we had left the wind behind us in Kansas...but oh no...between Idaho Falls and Arco we fought a cross-wind of 25 miles per hour. Still no Toto or Dorothy to be found though! So we blew into our destination of Arco, Idaho, which was the first city in the country to get its electricity from a Nuclear Reactor. No one seems to glow, but we may know more after the sun goes down. We set up camp at the local KOA and unloaded Magellin II. Then we drove west to Craters of the Moon National Monument. It turns out to be a massive lava flow area 20 miles wide and 40 miles long. There were a number of cinder cones, as well as, massive lava rocks pushed up from previous eruptions. The monument was amazing and very handicap accessible. The roads and trails were exceptionally well planned & maintained, and the visitors' center was very informative and interesting.

We also learned today that NASA's Apollo Astronauts Shephard, Mitchell, Cernan and Engle learned basic volcanic geology here in 1969 as they prepared for their moon missions.

I'm not going to put a lot of captions under the photos from Craters of the Moon National Monument, because...after all...it is lava rock and volcano cinder cones.

By the way, in 1923, when the area was set aside as a national monument, President Coolidge said, "this monument is to preserve a weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself."

So enjoy!