Craters of the Moon, near Arco, ID

We continued west to see Craters of the Moon and wow, it really is like being on the moon! Or at least another planet. We learned they’ve even trained astronauts here. We pulled into the campground and the kids were very excited to see we were surrounded by mountains of lava rocks! They took off to explore and built forts. Matt said, “I wish we lived here! Oh, we do!” There’s a great view out of every window because of the interesting rocky landscape. We went to the visitor center to start their Jr. Ranger programs (which they call Lunar Rangers!) and learned all about this area and their squirrels (check), chipmunks (check), and yellow bellied marmots (no sighting yet). Then we drove the loop checking out the very odd landscape. It really is the strangest (and coolest) area we’ve seen in our travels so far. You can see where the lava flowed and solidified, very cool (well hot then).
Then we explored some caves, which are lava tubes and very neat. It wasn’t your typical touristy walk through a cave either. There was a lot of climbing (so we loved it, Allen & the kids a bit more than me). Instead of rushing through the last two caves, we decided to leave those for tomorrow and explore some more then instead of leaving.
Allen took the kids to a ranger presentation tonight, while I had a little peace and quiet. Ahhhh. That hit the spot after hiking and spelunking with three kids who were freaked out of their minds exploring such a fun place.
Lots of pics...