Craters of the Moon National Monument - Idaho

After a long drive through a corner of Montana we made our way back into Idaho for the journey south and stopped in a really awesome park called Craters of the Moon National Monument. It a place like no other I have been to.  An area that was once volcanically active many thousands of years ago is now covered in lava rock.

While very desert-like as you look around there is some plant life in very unusual forms. The lichen that grows on the lava rocks come in all sorts of textures and colors, from bright green to orange to bright yellow. 

I liked how you can see ripples lava rock showing the flow of lava from long ago.  It was very different in the way it has ripples rather than more chunky, rocky texture of other lava in the area. 

The boulder near the top of the frame looks like a frog sitting on a rock. It caught my eye as I was taking in the scenery, just had to take a picture to share.

   There was a ranger there that was going around to the visitors to let us know that a program was going to start soon about bats, since there are a few caves in the area and the bats live down there.  It was part of a Junior Ranger program, but she said that you didn't have to be a kid to join in the fun. We had a limited amount of time here since we still had to get to the next town to find lodging, but the time we did spend was lots of fun.  

Since the landscape is so diverse and has an out of this world feel, astronauts from the Apollo missions trained at the park before going to the Moon.  They had to be trained on relaying their observations to the scientist back on Earth.  Imagine having to look out and have to describe what you see, from the shapes of rocks, big and small, to the way the horizon looks.  Do you think you can describe a scene for your friend to draw who isn't there to see it for themselves?  That's what the astronauts had to do when they went to the Moon. Try it on your next adventure, Meet Me Outdoors.