Walking on the Moon

July 17, 2002 – Craters of the Moon National Monument

Today we went to Craters of the Moon National Monument. The drive from Idaho Falls took us by Idaho National Laboratory and Department of Energy site and the site of the world’s first nuclear power plant. It amazing the things that are out there in the “middle of nowhere”.

Craters of the Moon had a unique, stark beauty. I knew the park was made up of lava formations, but I wasn’t prepared for the vast, black flows for miles and miles. It looked very much like the lava fields at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park except that there were some green plants and wildflowers at Craters. We learned about pahoehoe (slow flowing) and a’a (fast flowing) lava. We learned about the volcanic activity that created the Snake River Valley in Idaho over millions of years and that Yellowstone today is part of that activity. The kids and I hiked up a large hill and saw the vastness of the lava flows all around and we all went on a guided ranger tour at Indian Cave. It was nice to be cool underground while the temperatures were in the 90’s above. Some of the caves have ice in them all the time, but we didn’t go in those.

Back at Idaho Falls it was swimming at the hotel, then to a local movie theater to see the new Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch”, and finally back to the Cold Stone Creamery.

Update from 2020: Stitch became Aaron’s favorite character for a long time. He watched the movie dozens, if not hundreds of times. He watched all the spin off shows on Disney channel. We played the Lilo and Stitch board game. We rode the Lilo and Stitch ride every time we went to Walt Disney World (which being Floridians was a lot). One year during the phase when I was his sidekick every year for Halloween he was Stitch, and yes, I was Lilo. And today his profile picture on our Disney Plus account is – Stitch. It is fun to remember that his first introduction to one of his favorite characters happened on vacation far, far away from home in Idaho Falls.