Craters of the Moon

September 2015 we took Scott's first trip to Yellowstone National Park and I am just now (one year later) getting these pictures added to our blog. 

YES, we're on the road again.  Hooray!  Started out a little ominously when we hit and killed a deer not even a mile out of Cove.  This is Scott's second deer this summer, no damage to the truck or trailer unlike the last time when we had major repairs on the Camry.  Both times we missed the first deer, hit the second, and missed the third!  Yikes!  Drove on to Craters of the Moon to spend the night before heading on to Yelllowstone...

CRATERS OF THE MOON CAMPGROUND

Rather "other worldly" area for camping; actually the facility was nice with water, restrooms, 

charcoal grills and picnic tables.

CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL MONUMENT AND PRESERVE

Visitor Center

Plants growing on a lava field...

Closer...

And still closer!  It really was beautiful and amazing that plant life could grow here!  Dwarf buckwheat plants grow with such regular spacing that it appears that someone planted them.  But the regular spacing occurs because the plants are competing for water through their extensive root systems.

See the cinder cone in the distance.

There is a seven mile loop road where you can explore the diverse landscape.

Lava flow.

Miniature spatter cone.

NASA's Apollo Astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Eugene Cernan, and Joe Engle learned basic volcanic geology here in 1969 as they prepared for their moon missions.

At the end of the day we found this "bear" rock formation in the campground!