Us vs. the Volcano

We have got to get back to green places, but today was our volcano discovery day. I've been up this one before, but my husband hadn't, so we went up Menan Buttes today. They are twin volcanoes that are the only ones in North America to come up through fresh water (the Snake River used to flow here). The whole landscape below is lava flow--not stuff that dripped off these volcanoes, but just oozing, bubbling lava for miles and miles and miles. I'm thinking that millions of years ago, Idaho was a pretty miserable place to be. It's always weird to get on a mountain and look down at Idaho. You have lava and marsh and river and sagebrush and tuff (volcanic ash turned to stone) and obsidian and sand dunes and lush aspen groves and lodgepole pines and huckleberries and wheat and potato farms. It's just a weird combination!

Anyway, there are all kinds of caves and holes in the rocks.



Climbing up was fine on the rocks but slick on the grainy volcanic sand. Hence the chains.



The caldera:



You can walk around the rim of the caldera. We went halfway and came back, because the other way involved quite a descent and ascent, and we were fielding QUITE a lot of complaints by that point. (I'm hot! I'm tired! Meine Fuessen sind wie Steine! Well, something to that effect... Of course, on the way down, those same complaining kids announced that they LOVED this mountain! Um, yeah. Someday they'll have kids of their own, and I WILL REMIND THEM OF THIS, mwahaha!)



There were these pretty flowers at the bottom. They're the same color as thistles, except they are something else. (I used the Orton effect on these from Picnik, for full disclosure.)



I think I'm more than ready to send everyone off to school now. Happy Labor Day, everyone!