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Published: July 15th 2021
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Quick stop at Goodale's Cutoff, a roadside historic markerAgain, I was awake by 6am, but this time without having gotten the chills, so I had a good night's sleep. And again, by the time I woke up, my wife was back with a fresh hot cup of coffee for me. Just another of the many reasons I love her. Since we had a 6 1/2 hour drive to our next location, and wanted to spend some time along the way at the Craters of the Moon National Park, getting up and on our way was important.
The drive to Craters of the Moon was very scenic, but also pretty desolate, with very few towns or signs of civilization a lot of the time. It was about an 80 mile drive, taking about an hour and a half. We pulled into the Visitor Center around 8:30, but it didn't open until 9am, so we headed to the park entrance. It didn't open until 9am either, so we tried to use the automated machine to buy a pass, but they didn't offer any sort of annual national park pass, which we had decided would be the best option, financially. We returned to the visitor center and found a ranger coming
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The Vistor Center at Craters of the Moon National Monument out of the center, so we asked her about the pass. She said they didn't sell them at the center, only at the entrance, so we went back there to wait. A few minute after 9 the ranger showed up to open, so we told her we wanted to buy an annual pass, and that we were seniors. I believe seniors can buy an annual pass for $80 that becomes a lifetime pass. When I mentioned that I was a retired Navy veteran, she asked to see my ID card and proceeded to give us an annual pass... for free! Apparently, this year Congress had decided to pass a law providing free access to military retirees.
We hung our new pass on the rear view mirror and headed into the park. The park consists of huge fields of lava along with many cones, craters, and even lava tube caves, making it truly look like someplace on the moon. We'd already checked out the map and decided the places we wanted to stop and look at closely were the North Crater, Devil's Orchard, Inferno Cone, and the Caves. We found out that our first stop, the North Crater, wasn't actually
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View back from our first stop at the North Crater Flow a crater, after we'd climbed up quite a ways, so we returned to our car. The next stop, Devil's Orchard, was a short loop walk thru some weird shaped lava fragments, with a lot of signs describing the impact of various plants and visitors on the lava. After that, we continued on to the Inferno Cone. This was a giant, very high, lava cone, with the accent on very high! We finally made it to the top, stopping a couple of times to catch our breath, and were rewarded with some awesome views of the surrounding geography, including lots of tall formations and mountains in the distance. On a side note, Manoli had learned of some major wild fire in Idaho that was causing a lot of smoke and lessening what would have been some even more spectacular views. After a number of nice photos, we walked back down (almost a tough as going up!) to our car and headed to our last stop, the Caves area.
The Caves area consists of a fairly long walk across the lava fields to visit a number of caves, which were actually lava tubes. The longer route had 3 caves, but only
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View from our trail loop at the Devil's Orchard the last one, Beauty Cave, looked easy enough to enter safely. If you decide to visit any of these caves, do yourself a favor and bring a decent flashlight. It will make your visit safer and more enjoyable. After a short look around, using my camera flash to see a bit better, we headed back to take the other trail to the Indian Tunnel Cave. This one was a lot bigger, easier to get in, and somewhat lit by other openings deeper in. We did glance into a couple other tunnels, but even though people were heading down into them, they did not look safe, so we passed.
We left the Craters of the Moon and after finally getting good enough satellite reception, continued on our way to our three-night stay at Livingston/Paradise Valley KOA Holiday, near Livingston, Montana, about 5 hours away. After a short drive, part of it behind a humongous oversized-load truck, we entered the town of Arco and saw The Pickle Place. Since it was lunch time, and the place looked interesting, we decided to give it a try. They are known for their fried pickles (surprise, surprise!) and had an interesting menu. Today's soup
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A bonsai-looking tree growing out of the lava rock special was hamburger mac, so my wife tried that and I ordered a Reuben. Manoli said her soup was delicious, and added an order of fried pickles. My Reuben was tasty, but the meat was a bit tough.
After a leisurely lunch, we got back on the road. Again, when we weren't on an interstate, the views were quite pleasant. During our last 80 miles or so on Interstate 20, we run into several stretches with only one lane, and 55 mph speed limits. We reached our KOA just before 6:30pm, checked in, and went to our new cabin. This KOA has some awesome views of nearby mountains, a decent store, and an indoor pool, but our cabin lacked air-conditioning, a refrigerator or a TV. Oh well, my wife particularly liked the views, so... We ate almond butte and honey sandwiches for dinner so we wouldn't have to make the 40-mile trip back to Gardiner, and I bought a bag of ice to chill our drinks.
Tomorrow morning we head out to spend our first of two days in Yellowstone National Park.
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