Today is our longest drive of the trip, 7 hours. We did break it up a bit with a few stops. We headed out of West Yellowstone at 8am. Let’s all take a moment to mourn the remnants of my Yellowstone map. It was well loved.

Again this morning, traffic was lined up to get into Yellowstone. We left Montana and crossed back into Idaho, and again noticed how the topography changes.

We also noticed the difference in their light poles? We couldn’t figure out why this style versus ours?

We also giggled at how much notice they gave you of an upcoming stop sign… of course they do let you drive at 80 miles an hour so guess it takes longer to stop 😜

We traveled through the city of Arco, Idaho. The first town to be powered by atomic power! They were pretty proud of this distinction because at least every other business made mention of it.

We also saw the Arco Motel… it was interesting to see it up close because the TripAdvisor pictures were only slightly skewed 😀 I think we made the right decision to just make today one long drive.

As we started to approach today’s National Park area, the landscape started to change. The soil is black and rocky.

Welcome to the Craters of the Moon National Monument!

Craters of the Moon was formed by lava than came out through fissures in the ground instead of the usual volcano eruption that we think of. The lava ran like we’ve all seen in Hawaii, and then these areas were formed as the lava cooled. There are splatter cones and lava tubes for exploring. Normally you can go into the lava tubes (like a long cave) after you get a park permit, but due to Covid (ugh, stupid Covid), these were closed.

This areas is otherworldly with the dark soil and rocks. One trail, the Devil’s Orchard was particularly spooky with its dark rocks and twisty gnarly trees.

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And it is hot out here with all this black soil. We drove to different sections, stopping to see the different shapes and cones. It was cool to see how the vegetation is trying to regrow here. These look like moss but they are actually the beginnings of sagebrush plants.

There were lots of plaques 😃 including one that explained that the Apollo 14 astronauts came here in the late 60’s early 70’s to train on how to collect lunar samples. NASA still uses this area for training… it certainly does look like the moon!

These colorful patches are lichens. They are almost always the first microorganisms to grow on rocks. Part of what they do is break the rock down into soil where other plants and organisms can start to grow. Pretty good info right? Know where we learned it? A plaque 😜

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From another plaque, we learned that these bundles of roots in the trees are called a witches broom. They come after mistletoe infects a tree, and tree tries to save itself by overproducing… it doesn’t work but it does create the creepy trees. How cool would this place be on Halloween?

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We climbed to the top of the Inferno Cone.

It’s only four-tenths of a mile to the top but the incline ranges from 35 to 45°, and then add in the heat… whew! It was some kind of climb.

The views at the top – WOW!

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We also met the nicest family from Tennessee. They are trying to see all 50 states like we are. Their mom, Brittany opens her own “Mom’s Restaurant” from the back of the car too. They even have the same ThunderBunny US Picture map that we do! She and I shared traveled stories as we walked down the Inferno Cone, and by the bottom we connected on Facebook to share travel stories and tips.

This was such a cool stop and nice break to our long ride.

We may have accidentally found a lava rock in our car too 🤭

Watching the lava fade as we traveled we headed on toward Boise.

When we started talked about heading through Boise (and specifically making sure we were not going through Boise at 5pm), the boys asked if we could see the football field at Boise State… you know, the blue one. (I like the nickname the Smurf Turf.) So we detoured through Boise, and found the stadium.

I was totally prepared to do my southern mama spiel “we’re from NC, we’re traveling through, my boys just love Boise State and would be sick if we were this close and couldn’t see the famous blue field, could you pleeeaaasse (add thick southern drawl) let them go see it just for a sec.”

But turns out, that was totally unnecessary. There’s a sign that says

“To See the Field, go to the Hall of Fame Entrance ⬅️”.

So we did. Walked right on in and Bam – there’s the blue. It is so much more than you see on TV. I mean IT. IS. BLUE!

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We headed out and caught a little traffic in the downtown area of Boise. But this sign made it totally worthwhile 🤣🤣🤣

We left the metropolis of Boise and headed north on our way to McCall, Idaho. Again, sorry for the multiple landscapes pictures, but it is gorgeous here.

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We followed these rapids for miles and were awfully glad we weren’t rafting these! Yikes!

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We arrived at our little condo in McCall and then ran out to get groceries. We have a full kitchen for a couple of days so we are excited for a few home cooked meals. We filled our bellies with homemade chicken fajitas, chips and salsa , and strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. We played some Phase Ten and finally made it all the way to the 10th phase! (Leo decided to skip tonight and instead watched some Disney Plus.)

One more fun day ahead before we started getting to head back to reality… but I think tomorrow will be a perfect end 😁