Craters of the Moon, without all that pesky space travel

The second day of our Rocky Mountain vacation was spent at Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho. The park is large, and consists of massive lava flows, and just about every mountain that can be seen on the horizon is an ancient volcano. It is aptly named, as the craters of the moon are ancient lava flows as well.

The morning was spent warming up and watching ground squirrels play in the mound of lava rock around the campgrounds. It was cold. Our first act in the park was to climb to the top of the Inferno cone, which appeared completely barren, but which had some low bushes and scrub growing on the exposed top, which was completely hidden until you topped the crest. We ran back down, and snapped a professional quality photo of our strange little rental car, a Dodge Caliber. We the drove just a bit up the road to the spatter cones, where had magma piled up around the openings in the earth.

We then drove to the tree molds area trail head, and hiked a couple miles out to see these strange impressions in the lava, where ancient trees were encapsulated by almost cool lave, in some cases leaving clear imprints of their alligator skin like bark in the rock. Along the trail were some beautiful flowers, lots more ground squirrels, and a mountain chickadee that was just as curious about us as we were about him, who came right down to us, perched not a foot away from us at face level, and looked us over while he sang us a pretty song.

After our walk, we headed to see the caves of the park. These are lava tubes, which lava continued to flow through, even as lava has hardened on the surface, forming a roof, and leaving the large, well insulated cave behind. The spiky pumice like kind of lava rock called ah-ah is an exceptionally good insulator, such that, even in late august, icicles form in the damp back reaches of the caves. We saw something similar in a place called the land of fire and ice in New Mexico: an ice "pond" at the bottom of a cave, that even the Indians had made use of. We wandered through several of these, and then found our way back to the narrow paved trail by following piles of rocks on the otherwise monotonous surface of the lava flows.

Finally, we hiked the loop trail of broken top, which is a cone that has literally split in half. Along this trail we saw some very good examples of pahoe-hoe lava (the ropey liquid looking kind) and we saw a hairy woodpecker. Finally, it was time for us to leave the park, and make a long drive to the next day's destination: Glacier National Park.

Overall, the park has the appearance of being largely featureless and monotonous, but along each trail, we discovered something different. Different formations and types rock, certainly, but also different types of plants and animals. The park is large, but it is easily adapted to a single days visit, and is well deserving of its National Park status.

Nashvilles Frist Museum

In late 2006, we visited The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt at the Frist Museum. As far as I can tell, the last time this exhibit was shown was in early 2007. This was a display of ancient Egyptian artifacts. The exhibit consisted of a large and impressive collection of statues, gold, sarcophagi, furniture and more. There was a large scale model boat, complete with figurines, which was very interesting. The cornerstone of the exhibit was a recreation of a funeral chamber. Our audio guides explained the meaning of the drawings that circled the room, a depiction of the story of death. If the collection is still on tour, I would highly recommend it.

We went on a Frist Friday, which is advertised as having drinks and snacks, and a live band, as well as allowing admission to the exhibits, I thought this would be a fun way to spend an evening. However, the band was terrible, and while there was a plethora of free SALTY snacks, drinks were not free. I have to say it was something of a disappointment, and not worth the additional entrance cost. On exhibit in addition to the Egypt showcase was Bedazzled: an exhibit of jewelry. While this is not inside my normal scope of interest, the pieces, and the history were quite interesting. The museum also has a permanent hands on exhibit on art, where I played with everything, and had a good time. But, like most hands on exhibits geared towards children, 25% of everything was broken.

Earlier this year, we also visited to Frist to see Monet to Dali. This time we visited during regular hours, without the music and snacks, and I found the experience much more enjoyable. Secondarily, there was a display of Tiffany glass lamps which, much like Bedazzled a few years ago, was very interesting, and the pieces on display quite beautiful.

Overall, I think the Frist does a good job of attracting interesting and notable traveling exhibits.