Day 8 – Arco, ID and Craters of the Moon to Sun Valley, ID
August 3, 2013
The KOA RV Campground in Arco, ID not only has fire rings
and a laundry, but it has a small pool. After breakfast, the boys and I walked
over and stuck our feet in. It felt wonderful. After a week on the road and
only a few showers, we are all looking forward to swimming and/or taking a
bath! We said good-bye to Arco and drove about 20 minutes away to the Craters
of the Moon National Monument. What an unusual and exceptional place. It is a
huge stretch of land covering lava flows from “fissures” in the Snake River
thousands of years ago.
We spent a couple of hours along a seven mile loop road in the
park, stopping at designated trails to walk around and see the old craters,
solid lava fields, and monolithic piles of once molten lava and sides of
craters. The whole landscape is black and barren, except in the older places
where the forest and trees are once again settling in.
It’s a very unusual landscape and worthwhile to see and think about. The "youngest" lava flow was from about 2000 years ago, or around the time of Christ. The boys followed a bold chipmunk along one trail, we picked up a few lava rock samples, and I photographed the tiny and interesting alpine-like flowers which were somehow growing in the rock. Here is the Blazing Star, which typically only blooms at night. They are pollinated by moths. Its blooms close back up in the daytime. This bush was still in bloom in the morning, but the ones we saw later were closed. The flowers of this area have to be able to withstand 150 F heat.
After our tour and short hikes, I threw all of our leftovers along with lots of cheese into quesadillas
for lunch in an effort to clean out our RV fridge.
It’s a very unusual landscape and worthwhile to see and think about. The "youngest" lava flow was from about 2000 years ago, or around the time of Christ. The boys followed a bold chipmunk along one trail, we picked up a few lava rock samples, and I photographed the tiny and interesting alpine-like flowers which were somehow growing in the rock. Here is the Blazing Star, which typically only blooms at night. They are pollinated by moths. Its blooms close back up in the daytime. This bush was still in bloom in the morning, but the ones we saw later were closed. The flowers of this area have to be able to withstand 150 F heat.
From the Craters of the Moon, we drove another hour and half
to two hours to Sun Valley, Idaho. We immediately checked into our rooms at the
lodge and then went swimming. Ahhh! It is so nice to have ready access to
cold drinks, showers, and lovely beds. We will be here for about four days for meetings.
I probably won’t attempt to write about all of our days here, but I will try to
upload some photos.
From here, we will head north again to visit northern
Yellowstone and then Glacier National Parks.
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