6-23-17

When I woke up at 4:30 I tried really hard to go back to sleep but I never fell into anything resembling deep sleep. I was far too cold. I don't have an exact temperature but I would say based on the frost on our tent and the feeling in my fingers while I was taking the tent down that it was right around 32 degrees. 

I got up to go to the bathroom at 6:00 and when I came back Lorelei was awake. She helped me with a few things but I told her to get in the car and get warm. We finished up and then waited in the parking lot of the shower building with the heat on in the car for 20 minutes when they opened at 7:00. Some lovely warm showers and clean clothes and we were heading toward West Yellowstone by 7:45. We saw a few elk on our way out of the park.

We saw a place called Yellowscones on the way in and thought we would have breakfast there but they didn't open until 11 so we opted for a place with warm pancakes and eggs. 

The day was a heavy driving day. The first four hours were through the same kinds of ranch lands we've seen inColorado, Utah and Idaho. The mountains in the distance change but not much else does. Our destination was Craters of the Moon and with the exception of a few buttes and the ensuing jokes, it was a boring drive. 

Craters of the Moon is a 2000 year old lave field and has some pretty interesting formations. We would have liked to explore longer but the next spot was calling. 

Another 2 hour drive through the nowhere of nowhere as Lorelei calls it had us at Minidoka. This was a Japanese internment camp and while created during Clinton's presidency, it just now has a visitor center. It's so hard to imagine how those people survived the winter in the kind of houses that our government built and really, even harder to imagine how Americans had so much hate for people that they were ok shipping people away and leaving them in these places. We'll get to visit Manzanar in California and I'm looking forward to a more developed area. 

Another hour up the road and we were at Hagerman Fossil Beds. We've seen quite a few fossil sites in the last ten years but it was pretty cool to see the bourse statue and the place where they came from. 

90 more minutes and we arrived in Boise at our campground. We took care of some much needed sorting of boxes and bins to be shipped home because we don't need it and we will need more room for the clothes when the boys come. We also did laundry and had the chance to clean and dry out our tarp and tent. 

Tomorrow we hit the Capitol and one more park in Idaho before moving on to Washington.  I'm looking forward to less cattle ranches and farms and more trees.