Craters of the Moon

We began our vacation by flying into Idaho Falls, ID which is about an hour and a half east of Craters of the Moon national monument. We decided to check that out before driving the opposite direction to Yellowstone.

Craters of the Moon is definitely worth the trip. I've never been to Hawaii or anywhere close to past or present volcanoes, so it was amazing to see the hardened lava flows, cinder cones and lava caves. Click on the photos to make them larger:

Hiking up the cinder mountain

Family pic from the top

Gray became very interested in taking his own pictures on this trip. He took this one of us and I have to say he did a great job getting us centered in the frame.

Nana and Popper also made the steep climb and enjoyed the view from the top.

Gray was our "line leader" hiking back down.

Next we walked along a mile or so path that curved its way past cinder cones, lava tubes and hardened lava for as far as you could see. 

The patterns and textures of the hardened lava were amazing. 

We hiked down into one of the big lava caves. 

Part of it had fallen in, but it was still huge and really cool.

If you look closely, you can see me and Gray on the left side of the image off in the distance. We thought we'd be able to come out the other side, but too many rocks had fallen so we couldn't get out that end without climbing gear.