| Campground: | Iron Horse RV Park, 3400 Idaho St, Elko, NV 89801. |
| Total Distance: | 10,009 Miles!! |
| Traveled Today: | 295Miles. |
| Key highlights | Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve, Shoshone Falls Park, 4155 Shoshone Falls Grade, Twin Falls, ID 83301 Elko. |
Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve is a very different place. Endless fields of frozen lava with varied formations and textures. We joined the Ranger lead tour – that was interesting but could have been compressed to 10 minutes of content (instead of the one-hour talk for an 800-meter hike). Thanks to him, we paid attention to the extremely light and shiny stones – that are frozen Lava foam-like stones and learned about the different forms of volcanic activity that created this plato, with its small cones. We visited the Devil’s Orchard trail, the inferno cone, and the spatter cones, and our significant hike was the Broken Top Loop Trail- that was short and nice, but at 90F+ it was very, very hot. We finished our visit with a cool (temperature and vista-wise) visit to the lava Caves. We continued to be amazed by Idaho’s diversity.
Still – we were happy to get back to the car, turn the Air Condition and drive- seeing scattered clouds spouting massive rain on the horizon.
As we passed via Twin Falls, we could not resist stopping at Shoshone falls. We visited this place last year when we returned from Yellowstone, and the place was as impressive this time.
The long drive to Elko got us over the 10,000 miles driving distance for this trip. Driving 10K Miles in one trip is quite an achievement – and it was the first real sign that our trip was approaching its end.
The day’s highlight occurred as we parked our RV in Elko’s very good RV park. Then, the sky turned dark red- a massive rainbow painted on one side of the sky, and a scary and spectacular thunderstorm lit the sunset. Mother nature is glorious.