The story of a monumental trip.

This is Part 3 of an I-don't-know-how-many-parts recounting of our trip this summer. For Part 1, see here. Part 2, here.

August 12: Craters of the Moon National Monument

After watching the Perseids, we gladly crawled back into our sleeping bags. Before falling asleep, however¹, we heard a brief coyote serenade. If we had not been awake, we would've missed it – 'twas loud and just long enough to have probably woken somebody, but short enough that the person/people awakened would've had no idea why they were awake. Sleep came quickly after that, though getting up in the morning to pack up and move on again wasn't easy.

Since Notepad's shoes were barely functional², we decided to see if the nearby town of Picabo, Idaho (pronounced "peek-a-boo") had somewhere to buy some duck tape, to at least hold the shoe together until we got somewhere large enough to buy shoes. While there was a small hardware store across the street from the coffee/souvenir shop, the tape was almost a little more than we wanted to spend when we were planning on replacing the shoes that day anyway. I took it to the register anyway, because Notepad needed functional shoes. Chatting with the cashier, I mentioned that I was getting the tape to fix some shoes until we got to a bigger town, since we were camping. She told me that I should be able to get some cheap shoes in Arco, which was just outside our activity for the day – on the other side, of course. I was going to buy the tape anyway, since she was in the midst of ringing it up, but she said to not feel obligated to, so I didn't.

This was a day I'd been looking forward to ever since I planned out the route we'd take and saw that Craters of the Moon National Monument was on the way to Yellowstone. With a name like that, how could I pass it up? Especially since the available information stated that a good basic overview could be had by driving the Loop Drive, which would take an estimated 1-2 hours. I suppose if you just enjoyed the view from the viewpoints and parking lots, you could, but we ended up staying there twice that long, though it felt like we'd just gotten there when we acknowledged that we had to get back on the road. Craters of the Moon is the site of some dormant lava flows, covering an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. And h2g2 is just this site where people write entertaining nonfiction and chat about strange things. Neither description really quite captures the feeling, though they are both correct. Unfortunately, most of the pictures we had were lost in a freak deleting accident. We had told PaperKid that she could be the main photographer for that day, which was working well. A few days later, Notepad had been eating up phone memory by making many, many little videos starring her toys, so PaperKid did a mass delete, thinking that it would only get rid of the videos³, but everything from the month of August was deleted. I did take a few photos, as did Tom, but PaperKid had actually composed better pictures.

Anyway, we decided that we didn't want to take the time to drive past the Craters and then return, so Tom said he'd carry Notepad if there was a complete shoe failure. As it turned out, it was fine. We now return you to our regularly scheduled waffle...

After driving a bit, the landscape started to change from rolling sage-covered hills on both sides of the highway to a gradual creeping of blackness from the horizon on the right. I think the more surreal bit was when my side of the car was completely black and lumpy, while the other was still fully scrubland, with the highway as the dividing line. Soon after both sides of the highway were flat, rocky black expanses with the occasional bit of green, we officially entered into Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve⁴.It was a while after that when we reached the road that led to the Visitor Center, the campground (closed for extensive renovations this summer, or I would likely have tried to reserve a spot there, if the fees weren't too high), and the only real road in the monument.

First, we explored the Visitor Center, with its exhibits and videos and bathrooms. We were also able to refill our water bottles. Tom answered some questions⁵ to get a free permit to explore the lava tubes while we did so. We spent a good amount of time in the Visitor Center, as Notepad was fascinated with the life size resin statues of the wildlife to be found in the lava fields, and by the variety of lava rocks to be found there that she could actually touch, unlike the rocks in the "wild"⁶. Then we got back in the car and got onto Loop Drive. Our first stop (after paying at the little ranger's hut for penetrating the monument farther than the Visitor Center) was the North Crater Flow Trail *insert wistful wishing for missing pics*. This was a short loop trail through lava formations and plants that had managed to get a roothold. A chipmunk was sighted. Commentary was made on the asphalt of the trail being identical in color to the lava flows we were to stay off of. One of the few pictures I have from Craters of the Moon is of PaperKid standing on a bench to get as large a view on the phone as possible. We then went to the Devil's Orchard Nature Trail. Lots of limber pine and large boulders in cinders. Also signs about how people have affected the area. Looking at the map after we finished that little trail, we thought the next stop was the lava tubes. "Unless the road changes to a one way road, " I said. So guess what happened at the fork, shortly after leaving the Devil's Orchard? Ah, well, if it hadn't, quite likely we wouldn't've seen the people atop (what looked like) a ridge, and decided to join them, if it wasn't a long trail to get there. 'Twas the Inferno Cone, a dormant⁷ cinder cone. We climbed it, with everyone pulling far ahead of me (so that I couldn't even blame the elevation) and my hoping the steep bit of the climb was worth it. It most definitely was.

Yes, I know I got my finger in there – 'twas bright, and my phone's wide-angle lens sits a little higher than the regular lens... After walking back down⁸, we realized that we'd better just watch scenery if we wanted to have time to explore any of the lava tubes before we got back on the road, as this was the day we would be arriving at our campsite outside Yellowstone. We saw the Spatter Cones from the parking lot, and skipped going down the side road to the Tree Mold trail. When we arrived at the parking lot at the trailhead leading to most of the lava tubes, we had to decide which tube we'd explore, because we only had time for one. There was Dewdrop Cave at the fork in the trail, Indian Tunnel at the end of one fork, or Boy Scout Cave or Beauty Cave in the other direction. When Tom was getting the permit, the ranger asking him the questions had mentioned that one of the caves had ice in it, even in summer. We wanted to check that out, so Boy Scout Cave it was! This would be the first time that Notepad had ever been in a cave, and the first time the rest of us had been in an "unimproved" cave. The underground coolness was certainly welcome. While down there, we met another family⁹ and managed to coordinate turning off flashlights and such to demonstrate to the younger children just how dark dark can be.That lasted maybe half a second...

The warmth of the sun quickly dispelled the refreshment from the cave as we walked back to the car. It wasn't long after that that we arrived back at the Visitor Center and refilled our water bottles. I also got a few souvenirs – a magnetic bookmark for PaperKid, some postcards for Tom, a penny run through a penny squisher, and an Elongated Penny Album, to place squished pennies in. We've gotten several squished pennies through the years, as they are one of the least expensive non-junky-or-edible souvenirs to be found, but we've lost every single one... I almost got Notepad a book to fill out so she could become a Lunar Ranger, but one of the requirements is to attend a ranger talk, and there wouldn't be any for a few hours at that point.

So off we went, stopping in Arco at a discount store to get Notepad a pair of shoes that have held up remarkably well, actually – well enough that I should probably have gotten her the black-with-gold instead of the pink-with-gold, as the black ones wouldn't show the dirt nearly as much... I also got myself a nice big straw (or facsimile thereof) visor that can be rolled up and stuffed into my purse¹⁰. It fits well enough, unless it's windy at all, so I don't get much use of it here in town after about 11am... We arrived at our campsite about an hour before dark, so it was a good thing we hadn't tried to go to Arco and then go back to Craters of the Moon, because setting up camp would've been interesting... As it was, we got the "bear talk" from the camp host, who turned out to actually know where Crescent City is, because he'd worked a circuit that included Crescent City when he used to be a bomb defuser for police departments! He was a pretty cool guy.

Tom wanted to record my foresight for posterity. As it turned out, had we planned on arriving a day later, there would've been more sites open, and the campground was near deserted by the 15th.

You didn't think these were all the pictures taken by the Paperclan for this span of time, did you? Find these and more in Amy P's flickr collection.

Amy Pawloski

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¹Heck, before our heads hit our pillows...²Well, one was fine – the other would fall off if she tried to walk faster than a snail, or so she said (it was split down the middle of the top, being a knock-off Croc).³From the phrasing on the screen, that's what I would've thought, too.⁴Big sign, couldn't miss it!⁵Designed to try to prevent the spread of White Nose Disease with them, it appeared – I can't think of any other reason that the questions all had to do with not bringing anything that had been in another cave and not sterilized since...⁶Notepad, who is a very tactile child, did wonderfully with not touching things during the whole trip. I think she really took to heart the mantra that if everyone did :undesired behavior: that there'd be no :object of undesired behavior: left for others to enjoy. At least out in the parks and monuments and such – gift shops were another matter⁷Perhaps extinct⁸A much easier proposition than going up was! Though we did discuss what kind of sled you'd need for it not to get totally destroyed by the cinders in the summer...⁹Who had thought the extra water bottle I had stashed outside the cave to free up a hand was litter, so I'm glad I was able to let them know that it wasn't, and that I'd be taking it with me when we left – we did have water with us, as well, this one having a loop for easier carrying.¹⁰Obviously, I don't carry a little clutch