Like I was saying to Leila, Idaho never really registered on my radar before we spent a couple of nights and days driving on its beautiful highways, back ways, even dirt roads. Everywhere you look, a worthy view, a place to feast your eyes. Somehow we found Craters of the Moon. Well, I guess the somehow is not that mysterious. Leila's phone works almost everywhere and she calls Judith who studies the weather for us, and Arco, Idaho was one sunny spot in a whirlwind of storms.
Though no volcano exists here in Idaho, there are apparently molten rivers running below the earth's surface and every so often (in the case of Craters of the Moon some 2,000 years ago) that magma finds its way to the air. For the scattologically inclined it is heaven. Or even for those who prefer feeling destablized in terms of their size in the world, this is the spot. Tremendous terd like formations are the ground. Sometimes they chip off into sharp, rough rock size pieces. Other times the hardened lava cracks open to reveal deep caves that can be explored with bright flashlights, warm clothes, protective head gear (if you have it), and some suspension of fear that you just might be crushed, buried under with the slightest burp of that red hot stuff flowing underneath. The temperature differential is startling: from sixty to below freezing in a matter of feet. We crawled around, felt our way through and drew at the biggest cave, Indian Tunnel.
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