Craters of the Moon

( Editors note: I had been typing up journal entries faithfully, but was waiting to publish these posts since I can't upload the accompanying pictures until we get back in civilization. But I've changed my mind and will just add pictures later. It's nice to let relatives know how our trip is going, so I'll be posting all my journal entries and try to catch up.)

Today we explored the Craters of the Moon National Park. It's so eerie and haunting in appearance. Miles and miles of black rock seem to roll across the land in frozen waves.

We started out day with science lessons from YouTube, learning about volcanoes from Bill Nye the Science Guy. We have really loved using his videos for school on this trip, it's so much more convenient than dragging around a huge box of textbooks.

We hiked to the top of a very large cinder volcano and were rewarded with a fantastic view of the entire valley. The wind was fierce up there, but it was gorgeous.

The cinders were so black and crunchy it made me feel like I was hiking on a mountain of crushed Oreos. The cinders are also very sharp, so a simple fall can be very painful. Joseph tripped at the very end of our hike and was not very happy. Poor boy!

This is a view up the slope of the volcano...Matthew and Daniel are so beensy up there. It was a bit of a hike getting to the top.

We loved climbing spatter cone volcanoes and peering down the insides of them. I am amazed how many volcanoes are concentrated here in such a small area, this must have been a terrifying scene when they were all active.

The kids really loved looking down inside the shaft of extinct volcanoes. Here we are sitting inside an old volcano, peering over the fence into the volcano shaft.

Our favorite part of the day was when we went spelunking inside giant lava tubes. We hiked about half a mile to the entrance over scorching rock, then descended into the cold depths of the dark cave. (No pictures here, I was not taking my big bulky camera on a spelunking trip. No sir!)

Even Joseph loved exploring the cave, although the boulders were bigger than him and required significant effort for him to clamber over.

We scaled mountains of rocks created by collapsed ceilings and eventually exited the tube by lifting ourselves through a little hole in the back of the cave. Super fun hike.

Lunch was a picnic in the only bit of grass we could find, next to the Ranger station. The dry air here sucked out all the moisture in our food in less than a minute, which was very fascinating.

After earning the Junior Ranger patch and enjoying a few more hikes, we headed back to our campground to play. Our campground here had a nice pool, so the kids swam for hours while I enjoyed a book in the shade.

After dinner we made a large fire and pulled out enough marshmallows and Graham crackers to feed an army of children. We invited all the kids in the campground to join us, so the mountain of marshmallows quickly disappeared as we chatted and enjoyed the stars.

It has been very fun having so many families in this campground. The children have all really enjoyed playing with so many new friends. This has been a delightful stop on our journey and we will miss it.