When Ben suggested that we make Craters of the Moon National Monument part of our trip, I inwardly groaned. I'm a lover of trees and rivers -- a true Pacific Northwesterner. Why would we want to stay in a place so lonely it's named after the moon?
It actually ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. We were so impressed when we stayed here the night of July 7, we decided to stay here two nights on the way back home.
Craters of the Moon National Monument is 18 miles west of Arco, Idaho, the Atomic City. There are some creepy Area 51-esque restricted government areas outside of Arco that are fun to hypothesize about, but other than that the drive to Craters is really dull. Sorry. Thank goodness for audio books.
Arco, Idaho. They claim the population is 995, but I don't know where they're hiding. The school in town is attended by all children in Butte County. Michayla, laughing hysterically, referred to this area as "Butt Country." Yeah, pretty much.
The landscape changed from yellow to black like the flip of a switch. So bizarre.
Autumn with some A'a ("ah-ah"). The whole campground is covered in black gravel and lava rocks.
Our campsite on July 7. The visitor center is in the background. We didn't leave ourselves enough time to tour it during the inbound trip. Autumn and I spent some time there on the return trip.
The kids' tent on July 7.
The boys playing cards and Michayla reading a book in the tent trailer.
This was the first night in months that we were actually cold! Such a strange sensation!
July 14 and 15:
We were excited to come back here on our way home. We stayed two nights. This gave us enough time to see the visitor center, attend the ranger programs, and tour the caves. It was very cool, and if you're traveling through Idaho, I highly recommend this stop.
Our campsite on July 14 and 15. We chose one in the back with fewer neighbors, but it was also about as far as you can get from the restrooms, dumpsters, and running water. We continually improved our timing of walks in that direction. There was also terrible cell service in this park, which has its good and bad points. I was getting updates from my sister in-law who was just diagnosed with cancer, so it was a little frustrating at times to have long delays between texts.
Autumn, Sean, and I attended the Ranger Program both nights of our second stay. Following the nightly presentation, the ranger hosted a Junior Ranger Program for "the young and young at heart." Autumn and Sean joined in with the utmost enthusiasm and both earned their Junior Ranger badges.
A proud moment.
Part of the Junior program involved learning the names of the different kinds of lava rocks. Sean thought this lava "bomb" looked like a velociraptor claw.
We had quite a variety of weather at Craters. It rained a little, and it was hot and sunny. We saw lightning and heard thunder. And at night, the WIND was crazy. The night of July 14, we were sure the wind would blow the tent away and knock over the tent trailer. It didn't, but it felt like touch-and-go for several hours.
We walked a few of the trails at Craters. The longest trail was closed for repaving.
We climbed a big cone that looked like a giant pile of gravel. The view from the top was breathtaking. There was a storm blowing in the distance and we stood and watched the lightning for a while. The thunder was barely audible.
Climbing to the top of Inferno Cone.
Shea was very upset that he kept missing the lightning strikes. Michayla attempted to cheer him up. Such a good sister.
We went in 2 of the 6 caves: Dew Drop Cave and Indian Tunnel. Dew Drop was small; you could see the end as soon as you stepped down into it. Indian Tunnel was pretty big and it satisfied our urge to explore caves for the day. I guess we're a bunch of out-of-shape wimps. We were exhausted by the end of the day and ready to go back to camp and eat dinner!
These baby birds were crying for their dinner too inside a crevice in Dew Drop Cave. By the sounds of it, there were several such families in various cave apartments. Photo by Ben.
Ben and Autumn sitting on the rim of one of the giant sink holes looking into Indian Tunnel. They played with their cameras and got quite a few very pretty pictures.
Photo of me and Shea by Ben.
Michayla and Sean went ahead of me in the tunnels and when I finally caught up to them, Sean was hiding in this crevice to scare me! The photo doesn't do justice to his position. If he hadn't been wearing tie-dye, I don't think I would have seen him.
After we exited the end of Indian Tunnel, this was the view back to the car. You can see Autumn, Ben, and Cody sitting on the edge of one of the holes. This ropy lava rock is called pahoehoe ("pah-hoi-hoi"). (I should have insisted on getting my Junior Ranger badge!)
Autumn and Sean tried hard to convince their siblings to participate in the Junior Ranger program the second night, but only Shea was persuaded, if only to get them off his back. We loved Ranger Hester. She was a good sport, considering my children were so oddly excited by the activities they almost appeared to be hecklers. I don't think she gets many teens who are genuinely enthusiastic about rocks.
Dutch oven shepherd's pie in the sunset.
Photo by Ben. Yes, the sky really looked like that. No, the volcanoes were not erupting.
The last couple of camping trips have taught me that our family isn't all that interested in s'mores. When we had made it only halfway through a bag of marshmallows by Day 10 of the trip, I used the other half of the bag and some leftover cereal to make rainbow rice krispy treats for dessert.
All photos by me unless otherwise noted.
Fitbit recorded my step count:
Tuesday, July 7 - 10,078 steps
Tuesday, July 14 - 9,049 steps
Wednesday, July 15 - 14,970 steps
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