As you may recall, I flew in to Boise, Idaho, which was a way cool city to be in on the first night of the trip, and it was actually my first time in the state of Idaho. The city appears to be surrounded by lovely mountains--those kind of mountains that I had seen out in New Mexico and Arizona--the ones that are beautiful and all shades of brown.
The next morning I travelled east in Idaho toward Yellowstone in my small rented Toyota Yaris. Once I hit Highway 20, I was startled and swerved to avoid what appeared to be something coming my way from the prairie on the right. It was moving into the road and looked as if it could cause me to wreck, but I later discovered that it was only a double tumbleweed that had hooked itself together. None of the other cars on the road seemed to be paying any attention to them, so I quickly figured out that the tumble weeds may strike your car, but they were harmless; in fact, they could not even be felt. But oh my, they could be rather large and scarey at first--even bigger than giant beach balls!
As I continued to travel through Idaho, the brown mountains and hills gave way to green. Then on these mountains, there began to be pockets of evergreen trees. When the brown turned to green, I was in the Idaho's famous Sawtooth Mountains range. After that, snow capped mountains begn to appear.
As I got closer and closer to the snow-covered mountains, lakes began to appear. Then all of a sudden, something changed!
Besides the lovely mountains and occasional lake, the most spetacular geographic display that I encountered that day was toward the end of my drive when I arrived in northwest Idaho at Craters of the Moon. For miles and miles, you drive through these amazing black lava fields and craters. You intuitively know that there must have been vocanos here at some time in the past. My research tells me that these other-worldly features are the result of basaltic volcanic activity between 15,000 and 2,100 years ago. Like so many places, no picture does them justice; you have to see them in person!
I stopped near and devoured my picnic lunch (chicken left over from dinner the night before) and stared into those dark earth crater and scruptures.
Little did I know that these craters were only a taste of what I was in for at Yellowstone National Park! If you tune in for the next installment in this blog, you may find out more than you ever wanted to know about that park. But really whether you have already been to Yellowstone (YNP) or are planning on going, I believe that you will appreciate what I have to share about it.
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