In Which We Visit The Moon.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning on Labor Day weekend, so we decided to take a trip to the moon.

Our journey took us east through the dry plains and rolling hills of central Idaho.

We are in love with Idaho's big skies and gorgeous cloud formations.
We so rarely got spectacular cloudscapes like these in California.

The land turned agricultural.

Then, everything changed. This lunar landscape is part of the 1100
square-mile national monument called Craters of the Moon.

Almost exactly 41 years ago, Alan Shepard and the crew of Apollo 14
trained here for their visit to the Fra Mauro highlands.

The landscape was formed by a series of basaltic lava flows,
starting about 15,000 years ago, from the hot spot
that has since moved on to its present location under
Yellowstone National Park. Even though the hot spot has
passed, the area is still predicted to erupt again in
the next few thousand years.

The last major eruption was only 2,000 years ago. The basaltic plain
is now 60 miles wide and over 10,000 feet deep.

In 2000 years, very little plant life has managed to colonize this
blasted landscape.

Only lichen and a few hardy weeds seem to thrive here.

These spatter cones are remnants of the last eruption.

It was about 80 degrees at the summit of the spatter cone,
at the end of a hot Idaho summer, but just thirty feet down
its throat there was unmelted ice and snow
from the previous winter.

It will take thousands more years before these tenacious trees
and weeds break the layers of basalt down to fertile soil.

It was a fascinating day, but we were glad to return to the lush,
tree-covered landscape of Earth.

P.