2019.09.23 - Craters of the Moon to Jackson Hole

09.23.2018 - Sunday - After a quick breakfast and a very careful manuver out of the Craters of the Moon Campground (made it just fine, thank you), we started the day's agenda with a drive thru the National Monument. Because we had a longer-than-average travel day, we decided on a quick "drive-thru" of the park that only takes about an hour. The plan was to make the park loop, then hit the Visitor Center on the way out.

   Craters of the Moon Campground 

Craters of the Moon was created as a National Monument in 1924 under Calvin Coolidge who dubbed the area as "a wierd and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself." Some thought it looked like the moon as seen in a telescope and, yes, NASA Apollo astronauts learned basic volcanic geology here in 1969 in preparation for their moon missions. Because of the wide expanse of lava flows, many who visit Craters of the Moon look for a volcano. All the lava at Craters of the Moon, however, really didn't come from one volcano, but from a series of volcanic fissures that make up the Great Rift. The vast fields of lava are geologically fairly new (15,000 years old), with some eruptions taking place within the last 2,000 years. Yikes - was that a safe place to stay?  

 Devil's Orchard

Splatter Cone

Overlook from Inferno Cone

We finished the drive in good time, then headed back to the Visitor Center to spend some time there. As busy as things were that weekend, there wasn't a single empty space left in the RV parking lot, so our visit to Craters of the Moon National Monument officially ended (by then, John had dubbed it, "Craters of the Storage Door National Monument").

The routh to Jackson Hole involved a run on Hwy 20 from the small town of Arco, ID to the larger town of Idaho Falls, ID.  Nothing is really notable about that stretch of highway except that it appears to run through an area that was (and still is) utilized for nuclear research (and waste dumps, it appears). We passed the Atomic Museum where usable electricity was first generated from nuclear energy in 1951, road signs indicating the way to the town of Atomic City and numerous facilities run by the Idaho National Laboratory with signs such as "No Admittance Except under Official Business", etc. 

We stopped for lunch in an Albertson's parking lot in Idaho Falls and made a grocery run while we were there. We discovered that you could buy beer and wine on Sunday, but liquor stores were not allowed to be open (there was one right next to Albertsons). So, although we could celebrate that the local High School Gizzlies won their Friday night football game, we had to go dry with respect to re-stocking up on Baileys for our coffee.

We headed north out of Idaho Falls and took Highway 31 thru the back side of the Teton Range, dropping down into Jackson, WY via the Teton Pass on Hwy 22. Unbeknownst to us, the Teton Pass has sustained 10% grades for 5-1/2 miles as you drop from the summit (8,429-ft) down into Jackson. The speed limit for trucks (and RV's) is 25 MPH with lots of 20 MPH curves. Leave it to say that we could smell the brakes as we got near the bottom.

Jackson, WY from the top of Teton pass

Jackson was hugely busy being it a weekend, and we pushed on to the Gros Ventres Campground, about 6-miles north of town. It was first-come, first-serve, and, by 3pm, no electrical sites were available. They did have pletnty of "dry" campsites available, so we grabbed one and settled in.

Gros Ventres Campground

Gros Ventres Campground view of Tetons

We had an early dinner, then took a walk around the campground and stopped by the amphitheatre to take a few photos of the sunset over the Tetons. The camera could not do justice, however, to what the human eye can take in insofar as the visual beauty of the sky in a place like the Tetons. We tried, but you just couldn't capture what you were seeing yourself.  

Grand Teton Sunset

Good Night - Tetons

Tomorrow - North thru Grand Teton National Park, into Yellowstone National Park and on to a three-night stay in West Yellowstone in Montana, our home-base while touring the National Park.