Peaks to Craters

 

We hated saying goodbye to the Sawtooth Mountains but thought it fitting that the road we traveled this morning is called the Peaks to Craters Scenic Byway. This byway took us to a national monument we wanted to visit called Craters of the Moon. Craters of the Moon is a vast expanse of lava flows and cinder cones. There are also a number of small volcanoes, in the park, but most of the exposed lava issued thousands of years ago from a series of fissures referred to as the Great Rift. In 1918, President Calvin Coolidge described the area as “a weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself.” In 1969, Apollo Astronauts learned basic volcanic geology here as they prepared for their moon mission. We enjoyed climbing a mountain of ash and checking out the unusual volcanic features on the 7-mile loop road that goes through the park.

Our home for the night is a KOA in Arco, Idaho. Sometimes referred to as Atomic City, Arco was the first community in the world to be lit by electricity generated solely by nuclear power. This occurred for about an hour, on July 17, 1955, and was powered by Argonne National Laboratory. We didn’t choose to visit Argo solely because of its atomic history fame. This happens to be where Mark’s dad worked (for Argonne National Laboratory) right before he died.