Travelogue: Craters of the Moon

I think this is the last of the Idaho posts. Tomorrow:  Yellowstone!

I've been to Craters of the Moon several times, and it was pretty high on the list of stops.  It also had the virtue of being right along the road we were traveling on, unlike ISU.

Lunar Ranger getting sworn in.

Conversation as we're passing Idaho Falls:
Jeff:  Are you sure you don't want the kids to see where you went to college?
Me:  Of course I want them to see it. But I'm not willing to drive an hour out of our way to go down and see a few buildings, most of which will look totally different from when I was there,  then back another hour.  It's another one of those "next time" stops.

It was also another one of those unusually hot days. We were glad of the awning for the kids' ranger talk, and when we drove around, we didn't get of the car much. Lauren was more interested than Sarah; she especially wanted to walk up the Inferno Cone, and didn't understand when I told her that it was MUCH higher than it looked.

Seriously, I remember being 13-ish and walking up it, thinking it didn't look too far from the ground.  Then you get to what you thought was the top and realizing there's still another hill to climb that wasn't previously visible. Then you go through all that yet again, and by the time you do get to the top, you're exhausted. Yes, there's
a nice view, but it wasn't spectacular to my eyes. 

So we didn't do that. We also didn't go into any of the caves, which was a bigger disappointment to me, but it was another thing we just didn't have time for.

But before we got to Craters of the Moon, we had lunch in Arco, at Pickle's Place (home of the Atomic Burger!).  Why the Atomic Burger?  There's a nuclear test facility nearby, of course. 

Before we left, Jeff asked me what kind of food Idaho was known for.  (He knew better than to bring up potatoes more than once.) Detroit has great Middle Eastern food, Polish food, and of course cherries and Coney dogs.  What about Idaho? 

Um.  "Don't say Rocky Mountain Oysters, because I'm not eating that!"  OK, then.  I honestly couldn't think of any local/regional specialties until I saw "finger steaks" on the menu at Pickles.  "Ooo, we have to get that!"  Finger steaks are like chicken fingers, but with steak instead of chicken. Easy, right?  But I never see them around here. The ones at Pickle's were good but not amazing, and I'll probably make my own version sometime later this year.