A couple of weekends ago my wife and I joined two friends and took a trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument southwest of Arco, ID. It is an old volcanic rockscape and is an amazing representation of flood basalt. There are caves, lava flows, cones, craters – it’s stunning. The landscape is so stark, yet life persists. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The place lives up to it’s moniker – it was like another planet!
I’ve named the photo here “The Alien Rock”, as that is exactly what I think of when I see it. I took this picture of orange lichen covering the pock-marked basalt rock that had previously been a part of the cave roof that towered 30 feet above me. When the lava tube collapsed, rocks like this fell into the resulting caves. The Alien Rock fell in just the right place to be colonized by one of the many species of lichens that dot the park. I just love how it pops right out at you. Needless to say, I was really taken by this trip, and I have a lot more photos to share in the coming days and weeks of our trip.
Check out more information about Craters of the Moon here.
JPG PHOTOS 
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