Road Trip 2012: Thursday 9/27

141 miles, camped at Three Island Crossing State Park, at Glenns Ferry, Idaho.  This park is one of the most beautiful state parks I have ever stayed at.  There are huge green lawns with paved roads and wide spacing between sites.  On top of that, on Monday through Thursday, the rate is half for those 62 or over.  So a night here cost me $11.66 for the best camping spot on the entire trip so far.

Arco, Idaho to Three Island Crossing State Park, Glenns Ferry, Idaho

Site 31, Three Island Crossing State Park

Squirrel patrol.  None will get near us.  :-))

I returned to Craters of the Moon this morning.  There were two more hikes I wanted to take.  One was to take the Tree Molds Trail.  This trail leads to an area where molten lava flows encased trees and then hardened.  The molds remain after the wood burned and rotted away.  There were several cylindrical molds formed from standing trees, and a couple examples of fallen trees that left the bark imprints.

Trail to the tree molds.  A lava field is visible on the right.

Mold from a standing tree.

Mold from a fallen tree.

Bark imprint of a fallen tree.

The second trail was to the caves area.  The caves are formed from lava tubes.  When molten lava is flowing, as it did here about 2,100 years ago, the top of the lava flow starts to cool and form a crust.  Eventually the molten lava drains away, leaving a tube or cave.  The tubes can be any size, ranging from inches to many feet.  The 50 feet wide, 30 feet high and 800 feet long Indian Tunnel cave is the largest of the three accessible at Craters of the Moon.  I entered one for 40 or 50 feet, but I didn't have a flashlight, so that was as far as I went.  I did make a short video with my iPhone.

Trail to the caves.  You can just see my camper in the distance.

Farther along the trail.  Just a sea of bare rock.

Here is a one minute video clip I took with my iPhone.

Zoey and I left Craters of the Moon about noon, and arrived at Three Island Crossing at 2:30.  This is a beautiful park.  I set up camp, and we went for a walk.  I happened across another truck camper couple, George and Betty, and I stopped to visit because they were further from home than I.  They had Rhode Island plates.  George was meeting his son in northern Idaho in a couple of weeks to go elk hunting.  Betty was going to fly home then, while George and his son would drive the truck back to Rhode Island after hunting.  I discovered that Betty was a retired Biology teacher.  We sat for an hour or so, sharing wine and conversation about teaching, truck campers, and traveling.  In fact, they were at Craters of the Moon on Wednesday, one of the same days I was there.  I'm sure I remember seeing their truck there.  It was a great way to end the day.

Friday morning I want to explore the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and hike some of the trails with Zoey.  In the afternoon I head for Boise to meet former student Lyndsay Belt.  She is working as a fire dispatcher for the BLM this summer.  Stay tuned...........