Fire and Ice

…and to top it all off I stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument on my way back through Idaho. This is a place I've always hoped to visit, even thought I knew little about it.

As it turns out, there was a gigantic volcano in Eastern Idaho only 2000 years ago. It was so incredibly violent that it blew itself to smithereens. Today these smithereens occupy hundreds of square miles, expressing themselves in tall jagged columns and heaps of lightweight porous rocks that tinkle and crunch like broken glass under my feet.

During the violent times, liquid rock raced for twenty miles through an underground highway. Today the lava is gone and a network of scattered caves remain where it flowed. In fact, the most fascinating part my experience was to discover ice in one of these caves! I sat in the dark underground cellar for quite some time, watching water droplets form on the tip of icicles then drip off. All the while trying to remind myself that this was a river of lava.

I haven’t posted pictures here because there are too many of them. I invite you to see them at my Picasaweb site.