Day 410: Craters of the Moon National Monument

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Ben

Today we reluctantly left our amazing Shabbos camping location at Magic Reservoir and drove North and East to Craters of the Moon National Monument. The monument preserves a number of lava flows, the youngest of which are about 2,000 years old. We first visited the spatter cones:

Looking down into the spatter cone:

The terrain is other-worldly, and was used for lunar surface training for the Apollo astronauts:

We hiked up to view a couple larger cinder cones:

Pumice is highly aerated, so it’s much lighter than you might expect. Some pumice even floats!

Looking into another spatter cone:

Next we drove out to the trailhead for a lava cave:

We explored a short section. The kids are off to the left exploring a tight little side passage:

In the visitor center parking lot, Trish befriended our neighbor:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger books and received their patches:

While Trish made a late lunch, I took the kids to another trailhead for a short hike:

It’s easy to imagine the lava flowing across the land:

Eventually, wind-borne soils settle into crevasses and plants begin to grow:

This 3” long praying mantis blended right in:

After leaving the monument, we drove South and West to overnight at a truck stop in Bliss, Idaho. See the trip map for driving details.

Update: The kids produced a podcast for today’s adventure:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Day 406: Great Basin National Park

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Ben

Today the kids did some cookie decorating in the RV:

Trish made mini apple pies:

Meanwhile, I decided to ride to the summit of the road up Wheeler Peak. The ride starts in town at 5,318 feet and ends 15.6 miles later at 10,163 feet, a vertical gain of 4,845 feet. Outside Magazine listed this ride as one of the five best North American hill climbs. The climb is longer and as steep as the Tour de France’s Hors Categorie climb of Col d’Izoard.

I left at 11am, and the first half of the climb was really hot. Eventually, I climbed past 8,000 feet, and the temperature dropped considerably. Up here, it’s already Autumn:

Looking at the switchbacks in the foreground and the start point, the town of Baker, in the background:

The higher I went, the deeper into Autumn I travelled:

At last I reached the summit, nearly one vertical mile above my start point. The climb had more vertical than Whitney Portal but less than Horseshoe Meadows:

Wheeler Peak in the background:

I suffered two flats on the way down, but it was still a great ride!

Back at the visitor center, the kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

We watched the Park’s excellent video in the modern visitor center:

It was a little late to drive on to a new location, so we settled into a great dispersed camping spot I found on BLM land:

As I write this I can hear the swiftly flowing stream a few feet from the RV as well as a host of crickets. Good night from Great Basin National Park!

UPDATE: The kids produced a podcast for today’s adventure:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Day 384: Petrified Forest National Park

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Ben

This morning, we drove West on I-40 to Petrified Forest National Park:

The park preserves not only large quantities of petrified wood, but extensive badlands formations as well:

Also in the park is a recently restored 1930s-era diner and roadhouse that served visitors to the area:

We also stopped at newspaper rock, a collection of boulders with extensive petroglyphs carved into the patina:

Next we visited the Blue Mesa portion of the park. Here petrified logs act as capstones, reducing erosion of the softer sandstone below:

B examines a petrified log:

Another petrified log:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger program:

The visitor center included a display of proto-alligator fossils found in the area:

Behind the visitor center, there’s a path that winds among a petrified forest:

The petrification process replaces the open spaces in the wood fiber with silicates, converting the wood into stone:

Trish and the kids spotted a 2 inch long Tarantula Hawk, which paralyses tarantulas with its sting, then lays its eggs in the spider so its young can eat the victim alive. Yum! (see link for this wasp to scale with a Tarantula):

We arrived in Flagstaff at sunset, but the Walmarts there don’t allow overnight parking due to a city ordinance, so we continued on to overnight at a truck stop about 20 miles East of Kingman, Arizona. See the trip map for driving details.

Day 383: Mesa Verde NP

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Ben

This morning we drove West to Mesa Verde National Park, which preserves over 600 thirteenth-century Anasazi cliff dwellings. Our first stop was the visitor center:

Next, we dropped off the RV and drove into the park to visit the museum at the South end, which was very well done:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger program:

Next, we hiked down to Spruce Tree House, the best preserved cliff dwelling in the park:

Inside a kiva:

Next we visited a tenth-century pit house. The house was dug down about a foot into the ground, then walls and a roof were built over the pit:

Square Tower House is the tallest ruin in the park:

An excavated kiva and tower are all that remain of this surface village:

In the distance, we could see Cliff House and a number of other cliff dwellings:

The cliff dwellings are built into canyons that splay out like fingers from the southern end of the mesa:

Pretty good camouflage:

From Mesa Verde, we drove West and South, passing several Monument Valley-esque structures:

Tonight we’re overnighting at the Walmart of Gallup, New Mexico. See the trip map for driving details.

Day 382: Great Sand Dunes NP

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Ben

Shabbos was wonderful on BLM land just South of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the weather was perfect. Today we drove North to the park itself:

The main attraction of the park is the dune field, which contains the tallest dunes in North America. This photo only captures the Easternmost tip of the dune field, which is 30 square miles in size: