Saturday, July 5 - Today was definitely the hardest day of driving. We took US20/26 through the lava fields in order to see the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Once we descended from the green Teton Mountains (as seen in the picture to the left with the Welcome sign), the road to the monument was the very lonely with hundreds of miles of a lot of nothing. The geographical highlight was the Big Southern Butte (elev. 7,560, picture on the upper right), which was used as a guidepost along the Oregon Trail back in the day. We got out at a desolate (but very clean) rest area near the butte, where it was very hot and windy. I literally felt like I got wind burn. This is also near the Idaho National Engineering Lab, so there is a lot of information about nuclear energy around here. 
The nearby town of Arco, “The First City in the World to be Lit by Atomic Power,” provided some unexpected entertainment on an otherwise bleak day. The first was Pickle’s Place, “Home of the Atomic Burger.” Then, as we pulled into town, we saw a bunch of numbers painted on the side of the cliff, and we said, “What the heck?” It turns out each graduating class of Arco High paints their year on the side of the mountain.
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