The past several days have covered the spectrum from "not doing THAT again!" to "not ready to leave".....

After fueling up both diesel and propane in Bend, OR, we traveled through some of the most desolate country I've seen in central Oregon. All I could think about was those brave pioneers and the hardships they endured through this harsh country. And yet, people today call such places 'home'. Hats off to them!

We arrived in Caldwell, ID late in the day, tired and ready to call it a day. We pulled into the WalMart parking lot and set about to disconnect the car. The battery was very dead. We were puzzled by the drained battery, as usual operating procedures were followed. Since, upon restarting the car the radio was on (and wasn't when we connected the car) we determined that the radio had automatically turned on. We've had this problem before and have taken it to the shop, but unless it's happening THEN, they can't troubleshoot it. So Fritz will pull the fuse, if necessary. Lesson learned; we now check the car more frequently.

I had been smelling propane since we fueled up that morning, and while Fritz was tending to the car, I checked the propane tank. Propane was leaking out and all I could thing was KA-BOOM!! Apparently, the guy at the station overfilled it and, with the heat of the day and the higher elevations, it was exhausting the extra fuel. It smelled awful and scared me, but was not the big deal I thought it was.

A fellow-Foretravel owner Fritz had met on the forum came to see us while there, and he and Fritz had a good time swapping stories and trading problems and solutions. I'm delighted he has found this comraderie of like-minded travelers.

We finally settled in for what turned out to be a VERY noisy night. So a WalMart parking lot in a college town is a 'never do this again'!!

The next day we headed to Hagerman, ID and the first RV park we've stayed at since we left home Aug. 28th. It was an absolutely lovely, quiet park in a quaint little town next to the Snake River. We explored the Hagerman Fossil Bed Visitor Center and were disappointed to learn there was nothing to see in the fossil beds themselves. We had a delightful dinner at a local restaurant and a great night's sleep. Refreshed, we left the next morning for Craters of the Moon in SE Idaho.

We had been by here before, on our way back from the 1990 family reunion, but had spent no time exploring. This time, with a nice, $5/night campground (no hookups), we spent time in the Visitor Center and went hiking to explore the many varied landscapes of this lunar-like place. Located on the Great Rift, where some time ago the earth's crust split allowing for enormous volcanic and seismic activity, there are mounds of rock that, as one long-ago preacher observed, appeared as the devil's vomit.

Our campsite

Enormous craters dot the landscape along the Great Rift. Below are some in the distance.
(note the tree growing on the lava dome at the bottom of the crater)




                                                                               

 After hiking up a huge cinder cone (below), we found a determined tree thriving at the top. Fritz, in a moment of admiration, became a tree-hugger!    

                                      

Walking back down the cinder cone

We were amazed that, in this harsh landscape, new life exhibited an indomitable spirit while the skeletons of age-old limber pines littered the landscape, even as others persisted. All in all, it was an other-worldly experience that heightened our amazement of the diverse beauty of our planet.

This evening, we are treating ourselves to showers and laundry in Montpelier, in the SE corner of Idaho. We were welcomed by an afternoon thunderstorm with blankets of rain that soothed my sinuses after so many days in the desert. Tomorrow, we meander through four states, destination Dinosaur National Park.

Thanks for joining us! Til next time somewhere down  the road....