Day 17 marked our plan to head from Crater Lake to Craters of the Moon - portions of Oregon and Idaho we had never seen. We started with this sunrise over the east rim of the crater, all excited to begin our 13hr drive.
A couple minutes later, we sat in a construction stoppage for another 20 minutes. Not a great start to the day. We then drove through a downpour with some brief hail, saw the state's largest DO NOT ENTER sign,
and made a brief stop (literally 10 minutes) at the Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR. Also, as quaint as all of those trees may look, the Big Truck took an Amazon Piranha Bite (1 of you may get this reference)
to the mirror and upper driver's side from a low hanging branch. Revenge shall be swift and severe - the next time we are in Bend.
The stop was just long enough for me to run in, check it out, ask a few dumb questions, grab a hat and one of these for later
Inside, they had an impressive brewing setup, and a considerable amount of inventory in the barrel aging process. Lots of activity going on, and the gift shop was a busy place for 9am on a school day.
Back to the road, and a whole lot of this,
and this,
and this poor guy. Driving rainstorm, and he's chilling in the truck bed at 55mph just getting pelted. At least his buddy had the sense to lay down. Eastern Oregon, nothing is given.
After I stretched a tank of gas further than we ever had (just to get into Idaho and avoid another round of meaningless banter with the service attendant, not to mention the extra 9 cents a gallon), I checked on the results of our multi-hour 58mph experiment.
Success! All time towing record of 8.04mpg. Then we got on the highway outside Boise and immediately saw this.
As we got closer to Craters of the Moon, we started to see this creeping up from the southeast.
A quick check of the weather confirmed it - we're the blue dot just outside Fairfield.
For the next half hour or so, we hit wind, rain, and a fairly spectacular lightning show from 3 different directions.
Then, during a brief break in the weather, we started to see patches of black along the sides of the road. We were officially in the Craters of the Moon. This historical marker explained some of the history (as they are wont to do), and also served as a spot to try to squeeze a few pics out of the last moments of daylight.
Big patch of lava rock.
the remnants of liquid hot magma.
Sunset, alien abduction, volcanic eruption, or some combination of the 3.
Quick buzzing of the tower of the Visitor Center (closed because it was dark)
then we were on our way to the friendly confines of Arco, ID. The KOA that would serve as our digs for approximately 11 hours also happened to be on a dirt road. That along with our earlier storm basically had our rig looking like this (not ours, too dark to take a pic)
and me fully expecting this.
Instead, the Triton V10 did this, and we were home free.
Tomorrow - somewhere near Cody, WY via Yellowstone NP.
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