Homeward Bound-Day 3

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Today we are driving the Peaks to Craters Scenic Byway on our way to Yellowstone National Park. We are traveling a very diverse Idaho landscape, mountains, deserts, lava fields, and irrigated pastures. We stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve which had volcanic activity as recent as 2000 years ago. Literature from the park indicates that it got it's name from a geologist that described it as "the surface of the moon as seen through a telescope." (The craters on the moon are actually formed by meteorites, not volcanos). In 1924 President Coolidge proclaimed Craters of the Moon a National Monument, preserving "a weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself." The lava fields come from not one volcano but rather a series of deep fissures in the earth's crust-known collectively as the "Great Rift." As we continued on the scenic byway to Yellowstone, we could view Mt Borah, Idaho's highest peak.

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Photos

Vegetation on lava
After 2000 years, vegetation actually grows on lava.