City of Rocks National Reserve near Burley, Idaho

Since we're killing a couple of days before heading to the coast where it's raining, we drive south to City of Rocks. These granite pinnacles, arches and windows form visually stunning views.

The park is very popular with climbers and we find several along the Creekside Towers Trail. This is Morning Glory Spire which this young couple is climbing; a 66-year old woman was climbing a formation called Scream Cheese!

These spires, called the Twin Sisters, are interesting because the two formations were actually formed millions of years apart, yet they look so much alike.

We also plan to spend a day at the Bruneau Dunes State Park a bit further west, but honestly we find the lake beach smelly with algae and the sand dusty and dirty. Having visited so many beautiful sand dunes before - the Imperial Sand Dunes in Southern California, Kelso Dunes in Mojave National Preserve, the dunes near Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley National Park, Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado - these don't live up to expectations and we move on after having a quick snack.

Craters of the Moon National Monument near Arco, Idaho

Sorry for such a short blog post on the Grand Tetons. They are worthy of so much more. But we have been traveling quickly and I've had little time to organize the photos and thoughts that go into this blog. We have now been on the road for about 5 weeks, and I'm finally getting around to catching up on what we did 4 weeks ago!

A couple of hours drive over the Rocky Mountains brings us into Idaho, a new state for all of us. They call it "The Gem State" and I can only assume that's because it has a high incidence of gem-quality minerals. It is mountainous, yet open meadow in a lot of places too. We focus on an area northwest of Pocatello (which always reminds me of Judy Garland, singing "Born in a Trunk" in the movie "A Star is Born" - yeah, I'm a 50s-60s musical buff).

Anyway, we're here to see the Craters of the Moon, a vast area of lava spewed forth beginning 15,000 years ago from a 52-mile (84-kilometre) series of deep fissures known as the Great Rift that cross the Snake River Plain..

It's almost unthinkable how life can exist in this place, but it does. This hearty little plant is about the size of my hand.

A close-up of some chunks of lava. Its surface is very rough. Here you can see the algae growing on it.

There are a few lava tubes in the park, but we don't explore them as our campground host convinces us to explore a much lesser known cave further to the north called Hidden Mouth Cave. And I'm glad he does as we have the place all to ourselves, although we are hiking in the rain and the trail is steep, muddy and difficult to find at times.