Craters of the Moon
Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho: I am tired of
talking about the weather, so let's just say it was hot this morning in Boise.
We hit the road, pointing the bus east on I-84 and took a left to follow 26 to
Craters of the Moon National
Monument. We have camped here several times before, but the lure of ice
caves, lava formations, lava flows and cinder cones is just too much for My
Driver to resist. We will come here again, I suspect.
Dry-camping sites are available at Craters of the Moon. Very nice, clean and a fun spot to camp. First-come, first-serve and
there are only about 6 sites (out of 51) able to handle our beast. We arrived around noon
and claimed our spot - at nearly 6,000 feet elevation - for the night.
Nothing to hook-up to here - we just parked, leveled, put out the slide
rooms and awnings, then pointed the internet dish up to the sky (camping
schamping - there is no cell service in the park - so I wanted
internet).
We grabbed binoculars, flashlights (for spelunking), cameras, hats and
water bottles and headed out to explore the park. Our first stop was the
Visitor Center where we obtained information and maps (and learned that
many areas of the park are closed due to re-paving).
We checked-out the informational displays, watched a video about the
park before driving the scenic loop through Craters of the Moon in our
Honda.
We huffed and puffed hiked to the top
of 6,200 foot Inferno Cone, a massive cinder cone.
The view (east) was spectacular.
The view southwest was spectacular.
Conquerors of the Cone!
We wanted to walk around the two spatter cones at the
base of Inferno Cone (bottom right of the photo above), but noticed the
weather was turning quite nasty.
Scary even. Lightning. Strange weather happenings headed
our way.
We decided to take the plunge back down the cone to the
safety of our car.
We spent a few moments looking around the spatter cones.
We found snow in the bottom of one of the vents.
We found a rat in another.
Now it was just getting dangerous.
Foreboding and suddenly very windy.
This black & white photo is just for fun. Sorry to waste
your bandwidth.
We went straight back to the motorhome and barely made it inside before
our bus was blasted with gale-force winds. Well, honestly, I have no
idea how strong gale-force winds are, but the wind was strong enough to rock
our 54,000 pound bus. We pushed buttons everywhere to bring in window
awning and stow the internet dish. We left one window open a crack and
then spent the next hour wiping down every surface in the living area -
it was covered with grit sand volcanic sediment. Thirty
minutes later, it was all over and the sun came back to charge our
batteries via the solar panels on our roof.
Cocktail time!
Cocktails... which we enjoyed outside for about thirty
minutes - when another squall came along and forced us to hunker-down
indoors for the remainder of the evening.
Until my next update, I remain, your "gee, that rain smells good" correspondent.
RV Park:
Craters of the Moon National
Monument. 51 sites. Dry camping, flush toilets, no showers, water available
at several locations (with pump handles). Only 5-6
sites for big rigs. Picnic Tables. No campfires
allowed. Pets on leash only. Ranger programs. We
paid $10.