After waddling back to the car, we once again headed west. We soon crossed into the Idaho National Laboratory Site. I immediately flashed back to memories of my hometown. INL is the sister Department of Energy site to the Savannah River Site in Aiken. I can remember as a kid hearing about competing with Idaho Falls for various projects. It was interesting to see the site and it was a very obvious location for such a plant . . . remote and desolate.
Our real destination was a little known, but fascinating part of the National Parks system called Craters of the Moon National Monument. This is an expanse of other worldly looking lava flows that covers about 1100 sq miles of southern Idaho. The entire Snake River Valley from southeastern Oregon, through Idaho and to Wyoming are former locations of the volcanic hotspot that currently sits under Yellowstone. Most of these locations are now dormant, but Craters of the Moon has remained active erupting lava flows about every 1000 years. The most recent flow was about 2000 years ago and still looks very fresh with very little vegetation growing. We hiked several trails, including hiking to the top of one of the cinder cones (Infernal Cone) and through the lava field to Indian Tunnel, a massive lava tube. We thought this would be just a drive by attraction, but in the end we spent almost 4 hours exploring this place and probably would have hiked a few more trails if we had more time.
Our extended stay at Craters (among other things) meant we didn't have time to check out the nearby Hagerman Fossil Beds (so we'll have to save that one for next time). We are now checked into our incredibly posh $70 hotel room in Twin Falls, ID. Tomorrow we will cross Nevada and pick up our friend Emily at the Reno airport!!!
- Posted by Shawn from my iPad
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