Day 89- Wednesday, 9/16/09, SETTLED

This is one of the parks that offers us a free breakfast of pancakes, eggs and coffee. They are fabulous! We buy some sweet potato pancake mix and plan to try the sweet potato pancakes tomorrow - they will not be free, but they sound delicious!

ROADKILL: fox (or coyote?)

On the way to Craters of the Moon National Monument, we see mountains with creases that remind us of elephant hides.

There are dozens of ranches with hundreds of black angus cows.

One of the formations at Craters of the Moon is called Devil's Orchard. We see trees there with weird bunches of small branches. Finally we see a sign which explains that these clumps of malformed tiny branches at the ends of larger branches are called "Witches Brooms". They result from a fungus which causes unusual growth. Many early settlers cut these small branches off, causing the trees to die or become stunted.

We climb a cinder cone smaller than the one we hiked up in Lassen Volcanic Park. It is more tightly packed down, and therefore a lot easier to climb. The view from the top is not nearly as impressive, but we look forward to the challenge and climb it anyway.

Inside one of the smaller craters, caused by laval "spitting" we see snowpack still unmelted deep inside. This spitting results when activity is beginning to slow at the end of the cycle of the volcano.

We climb up to see the largest crater. Bob's philosophic comments: "It's deep."

Out here there is "just a whole bunch of nothing". Bob is disappointed that he hasn't heard any "Howdy!"s or "reckons". Corinne is disappointed that we still keep missing every rodeo that comes to town.

A funny thing happens to me today. I am on a hiking trail at Craters of the Moon National Monument, and I hear Hebrew behind me. I turn around to see two middle-aged couples walking together. As they get closer and pass me, I sing out "Shalom!" They stop in shock and say "Shalom! How did you know we were Israeli?" I told them I understood Hebrew, and we chatted for a moment.

Then I ask them how long they were going to be out West, and they say a week more. "So you're going to be away from home for Rosh Hashanah too," I say, sympathetically. "How are you going to celebrate?"

"We're going to skip it this year", they reply, with a hint of sadness and resignation in their voices. "But it's a choice we made".

Even though I feel for them, it is such a relief to talk to someone Jewish, and so "beshert" that it happened 2 days before Rosh Hashanah in the middle of Idaho!

I contact a Synagogue in Billings, Montana and hope to be able to attend their services. Still, I feel as though they have been sent to me by God just to help me feel less isolated.

As we get closer to our campground, we spot many beautiful, large, black and white birds. Later we find out they are magpies, the "Pest of the West". The white flashes on their wings are very dramatic.

When we get "home", we realize we have been sunburned, probably by the reflections from the sparkly volcanic rock. We are surprised, thinking we have been toughened by now.

At every campsite, we have a signature. We're the ones with the little white plastic fold-out bistro table leaning on the side of the RV.