Talk about freaky!!
This National Monument and Preserve, shaped out of intense volcanic activity, truly looks like a lunar landscape.
The preserve plays on its appearance and the visits to it by American astronauts to build a fun other-worldly atmosphere in which kids can learn about the many stages of volcanic eruptions.
After completing their activity books and swearing an oath to a Parks Ranger, our boys are now Lunar Rangers, complete with cool astronaut patches that mummy painstakingly sewed on to their backpacks for them.
We took walks around Devils Orchard, up the Inferno Cone, out to the Snow Cone and Spatter Cone and completed the seven-mile auto tour.
The lava flows and spatter cones here are amongst the best examples in the world and really help in understanding how a molten river of rock moves and solidifies and how an eruption sequence moves through its phases to its ploppy, splattery end.
Our campsite, amidst the volcanic rocks, extended our experience of Craters of the Moon through until morning.
The boys have never been as dirty as when they played with their monster trucks here!!
