The first destination for the day was a 2 hour drive to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. The drive will take you past open fields and open roads. Craters appears out of nowhere. We stopped at the visitors center and gift shop for bathrooms, maps, and souvenirs. The entrance fee to enter the park is $20 per vehicle. I actually ended up paying for an Annual National Parks pass since we will be visiting at least 5 parks this trip. The ranger said that it pays for itself after 3 parks. Well worth it!
Craters of the Moon is a very cool park. About 2,100 years ago there were volcanoes at that location. What you can see in the park are craters, lava fields and even some cones. Celeste and I walked some easy trails around different areas of the park. We did not climb to the top of Inferno Cone; it was way too steep for me. My favorite part was climbing the spatter cones. It is cool to find out that geologists study the active volcanoes in Hawaii to help them figure out the landforms in this park. Here are some pictures from our hikes.
The next part of our day took us to Twin Falls, Idaho. This city is about an hour and a half away from Craters of the Moon. The drive takes you to the middle of nowhere! The views are breathtaking though so it is worth the drive.
We made it to our hotel and unpacked the car. We have it down to a science now and it is like a game of Tetris. When you are traveling to a different hotel either every night or every other night you have to become a pro at packing/unpacking your belongings.
After a quick rest we decided to head out to see a few sights. The closest sight to us was the Perrine Bridge. There is an overlook and trail you can walk to see the canyon and the bridge. Now, if you know Celeste and I, we always luck out on these trips and see something unique. When we got out of the car we could see a lot of smoke. I'm not saying that this is a good thing that we saw, but it was unique to us. There was a small wild fire burning in the canyon. We pray that everyone is ok from this fire, but it was unique that it happened the day we were in this town.
The last stop for the day was a visit to Shoshone Falls. It was about a 15 minute drive and you pay a $5 entrance fee. You drive down a little bit into the canyon to see the falls. They call these falls the Niagara Falls of the West. Celeste and I have been to Niagara Falls in both Canada and New York. Shoshone Falls is beautiful but Niagara Falls is much more spectacular. I am not going to complain about these though. They are breathtaking. The water that you see is the Snake River.
On the way back to our hotel we had one more pit stop. We saw a cafe called Shari's that said PIE! Well... of course we stopped for pie! I got 3 slices, and no I did not eat all 3 tonight. Two pieces are in the fridge for tomorrow. The slices I got were Lemon Sour Cream, Peanut Butter Chocolate, and S'mores. The Lemon was my favorite followed by the Peanut Butter. S'mores was ok.
I'm so thankful to be able to do trips like these. America is a beautiful place to explore.
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