Trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument and EBR-1

EBR-1 was the world's first nuclear reactor that generated electricity. It was on our way to Craters of the Moon so we definitely had to stop and check it out. This is a picture of the building. I figured I'd spare you guys views from the inside, lol.

Afterwards we drove out to Craters of the Moon which happens to be a relatively young lava flow. There are several volcanic cones in the area where the views are just spectacular. I took the next two pictures with the tree from the top of the "Inferno Cone." It was so cool to see nothing but white, salt covered ground a few weeks ago in Bonneville to black, volcanic rock covered ground like this.

Here I am out on the solidified lava flow(yes, we can walk on it). You really have to watch your step because as you can imagine, the rock is very abrasive and uneven. Most of the rock is a blackish tint, but if it gets exposed to air, it turns red like the rock we use for landscaping.

Last up was by far the most exciting part of the day. We felt rather adventuresome and decided to check out the caves that were formed from old lava tubes. Some caves were only about the size of a two stall garage, others were much larger. Considering the only caves I've ever been in were on guided tours in the Black Hills, I couldn't resist climbing around inside them. We found that even in the larger caves, there were all kinds of smaller tunnels inside them. Some were just big enough to crawl through and we found would just lead back into the same cave we started in, but not always. The caves were surprisingly clean meaning, there wasn't any dust but just water condensation that formed ice on the floor. It made climbing around the rock even more interesting when most of it was covered in ice. All in all, yesterday was a lot of fun!