It's a pretty interesting place that I haven't been to in years. In my mom's scouting craziness we seemed to go at least once a year growing up and it was always a good time. Steven of course couldn't go because he was working the night shift at the Walmart, so that brought it down a couple of notches but the kids and I had fun anyway.
My parents, Hailey and Zach went up Friday night to get everything set up, we followed on Saturday because we had to hang around for Xander's last soccer game. They actually did pretty good, after a pretty solid losing record that was zero to whatever every game, they managed to score a couple of goals in their last game.
My mom brought a pair of binoculars that Xander was pretty much obsessed with the whole weekend
When we arrived Saturday evening we decided to go on one of the short hikes right by the camp ground
The stark beauty of the lava flow
So this is crazy, there are these clumps of caterpillars everywhere just hanging out on what looks like a spider web
Lava tube
Paizley and Grammy reading all about lava
The next morning my mom, me, Ryan, Emily and Xander tackled the three mile hike to the north crater. I was proud of my self that I was able to do it with minimal huffing and puffing. Paizley, my dad and Hailey and Zach met us at the end in the van.
Ryan and Emily
Meemer and Xander
After we made it up the first big hill
this is the second major hill we had to climb
In most of the park you are suppose to stay on the trails to preserve the lava flows, but at one point we got to walk across the actual lava.
It's amazing that in a place that is mostly rock flowers still find a way to bloom
We almost fell down that hill
Emily likes to photo bomb
My mom has a thing for dead trees, we had to take a picture by pretty much everyone we passed
Xander, Grammy and dork wad
Another tree shot
the North Crater this is where they think most of the lava flows came from
They call this the snow cone for obvious reasons
Spatter cones
Paizley and Xander looking into the spatter cones
Jinny
This is the cinder cone. We hiked to the top and almost died
Ryan and Emily showing off
This looks like we are getting close to the top but when you crest the hill there are two more you hae to climb, it's ridiculous
The cone next to the cinder cone is called the Paisley cone! She was excited to have something named after her
Piglet face
Excited for the caves
Another neat thing about Craters of the Moon is that there are several caves that you can just climb around in rather than having to go on a guided tour
Ryan, Xander and Zach. What you aren't seeing in this picture is there were three irritating kids that had climbed up there first and we had to wait 18 days for them to get down and then they were just hovering around in our picture. We finally had to tell them to leave. The best part is the mom was standing right there. Lazy parenting is awesome.
Deeper in the cave
Peeking out the cravass
Paizley was done after the first cave and so were Hailey and I. We went back to the van and the boys went to explore the other caves.
I think this was ice cave or something because of, get this, the ice.
We did a couple of other things but my ipad died so I wasn't able to get anymore pictures.
