Wednesday August 15 2007

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Lynn and Debbie

Lava

More Lava

Beverly at a Cinder Cone

Fixed Joe's breakfast, packed suitcases, and we had my SUV loaded up and heading out about 9 a.m. We passed Bob's Honey Truck coming to pump out our septic tank about 5 miles from home. We drove through the Hoback and Snake River Canyon and over to Idaho Falls. When we got there we had lunch at Garcia's (Mexican food), then took the computer over to Best Buy right nearby. I went to the geek squad desk and talked to the clerk. The girls helped me talk to him and see that they were going to do something for me. He happened to be the same Dustin I had talked to the day before, and he told me he remembered the phone call and yes of course if it was the network card they could diagnose the computer and have the card installed by the time we came back through on Friday, that it would only take about ten minutes. We said we'd call on Thursday to see if it would be ready Friday......to be continued.

We happily went on our way, heading toward Sun Valley. Clayton is so good to travel with. He enjoys the scenery or has a DVD player and watches movies, which on this trip was mostly Harry Potter. On the way we passed Craters of the Moon National Monument and stopped there so I could get my National Parks Passport book stamped with their cache. (Dang....I didn't realize there were several more places to get stamps along the way on our trip until after I got back home., so missed those - that means I just have to go back there again, right?) We took the 7 mile scenic drive and I wish I could send you all the photos I took, they are so different and lovely. Craters of the Moon is a small National Monument and all volcanic - many shades of black, gray and dark purpley colors. You should see the place where the campground is - on a jumbled lava flow with black cinders- a minimum of any vegetation. There is a small white plant or lichen growing on the black, which was very unusual. I'm glad we took the drive and really enjoyed it.

Then we went on through desolate desert country, actually I think that area is called the Snake River Plains - the river being to the south, and talked about how hard it would have been for the pioneer wagon trains to travel through here. The scenery changed to ranch lands on toward Picabo where the skier Picabo Street is from, and the mountains where we found a motel in Ketchum for the night. We hadn't made a reservation but turned down the first room we looked at, and took the second one. We had two queen beds and Debbie and I slept together and Clayton and Beverly slept together. Otherwise to get two rooms would have been about $350. We all like to be together anyway.

Town was pretty full with the tourist season. We walked downtown and after looking at several options found an Italian place with outdoor seating, Rico's Pizza and Pasta. It was pretty late by the time we ate, almost 10 p.m. by now and kind of late for dinner, but I ordered salad and fettuccine and it was very rich, fairly good. Walked back to the motel.