Westward HO!!!: Craters of the Moon

We left Idaho Falls on our way to Arco, which is the first atomic powered city. We stayed in a really nice KOA. David and I discussed that this would be a wonderful campground to run. Found out the next morning that it was for sale. Hmmmm.....

We made it to the Craters of the Moon campground which is called "The Lave Flow campground." This has to be on of the most unusual and funky campgrounds ever.
The Craters of the Moon was formed by the Great Rift. Lava flooded from this rift about 15,000 years ago. Every 2000 years there has been another eruption. Guess what? It has been just over 2000 years and another eruption is due.

We went on the a ranger walk that ended up with going into the Indian Tunnel cave. We learned all about the different types of lava. The lava flows also produced lava tube caves. We went into the Indian Tunnel cave with the ranger. Later, David and I went into the Buffalo Caves on our own. I was a tad bit intimidated going into this cave as you crawled into a narrow space. But once down in it, the cave was awesome! We ended up coming up out of the cave through a different hole.

We walked up cinder cones and and explored the splatter cones (which are miniature volcanoes).
The first day we were there the temps were in the high 70's. The next day it was in the 50's but with the wind chill was far lower! I was wearing 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, and a down vest and I was still cold. We went on a 3.5 mile hike on the North Crater Trail. This trail was mostly UP except for when we went down into the craters. During the last part of the hike we were on a high narrow ridge and the wind was HOWLING!! If I was a lightweight woman I would have been swept off the ridge. As it was, the wind was pushing me hard! I was extremely happy to be off the ridge :)
We woke up to 29 degrees this morning and we will soon be heading southward!!

The generator saga continues....
After we checked in to the Craters of the Moon, the rangers had been contacted by the mechanic that had worked on our generator in Idaho Falls. He had researched our generator and found that it had had a recall on them concerning those springs and fuel pump. He asked us to come back so he could replace the other spring and the fuel pump. We did make the trip back and the generator runs like a charm. We were VERY impressed with Hooker, the owner- mechanic for going to so much trouble for us.