September 22, 2013 - Sunday
It got cold last night, in the 30s. The trailer was 51 degrees when we got up, thanks goodness for that electric blankie. We are having a strange electrical issue with our old electric heater. When running on high, 1500 watts, it partially kicks out the breaker. The strange thing is the breaker doesn’t trip, we just lose a couple of outlets, and the outlets that go out are not the ones the heater is plugged into. If we turn off the heater and reset the breaker, the outlets work okay. If we run the heater on low, 500 watts, or medium 1000 watts it doesn’t kick the outlets. We have a newer heater which we will try when we have electricity again. If you have any suggestion about what is going on, we’d love to hear.
We are at a Wal-Mart in Mountain Home, Idaho. The Wal-Marts in Boise no longer permit overnight parking. So we ran done the road another 45 miles. We covered close to 400 miles today. We came across US20 through Oregon which got pretty hilly east of Burns. Once we got past the mountains, it leveled and followed a river, though it was twisty. The scenery was awesome! Plateaus of gold, tan, green, and browns were everywhere. We had no idea eastern Oregon would look like this. At the eastern end is Ontario and I-84. We will follow I-84 to where it joins I-80 just east of Salt Lake City. Our next stop is Evanston, WY.
September 23, 2013 - Monday
Woke to sunny but cool morning, made good use of that cat heater. Headed for Evanston in eastern Wyoming today. Several stretches of road with no services for 30 to 50 miles at a crack, so we needed to do good fuel management. The scenery during the last portion of the drive in Utah around Salt Lake was beautiful. We decided it was more exciting to us than the coast. Hmm...
We arrived in Evanston about 4:30. The town has history in railroad and coal mining. There is a historic area, but we arrived too late to see it. We should have researched it some and got here earlier. Unfortunately we can't stay as we have a reservation at a park we want to visit in Nebraska. Oh well, next time.
This may be the last post until we get home as the remaining stops have no WiFi.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
And More Volcanos
September 21, 2013 - Saturday
We visited three very unusual and unique features in this area today. The first was Lava Butte, a cinder cone. When the Newberry volcano area was active, this cinder cone blew up sending cinder bits all over and left a depression. There is a trail around the cone from which the following pictures were taken. At the highest spot on the cone they built a ranger lookout station for fire watch. Note that the cinders were red, due to the high iron content.
The second feature we explored was a Lava Forest. In this area, molten lava came into a forest of trees and encased the tree. Of course it incinerated the trees, but left these columns or tubes depending on whether the tree was standing or had fallen. The pattern inside these columns reflect the texture of the bark. The area is huge and looks so god forsaken, you wonder how things can be growing in here.
The first couple of pictures show the overall area.
This picture is where a tree was standing when the lava flowed in.
This is a tree that was down. Parts of the tube have cracked and fallen in.
The lava runs in excess of 2000F, so the trees are vaporized. The energy, devastation, and shear size of this area really put the earth's forces into perspective.
The third feature we visited was the Lava Cave. This is really a lava tube, like a paper roll tube. It was formed by a river of lava where the upper and side sections cooled while the lava inside remained hot enough to continue flowing. It left a hollow tube. They are not that uncommon in volcanic areas. There are over 500 of these tubes in the volcanic areas in central Oregon.
This one is essentially a cave that starts out about 50 feet in diameter and about a mile later is only about 4 feet in diameter. Over time there are areas where some of the ceiling has fallen to the floor. Water also runs through carrying sand that covers the bottom to several feet in depth. You cannot traverse this cave to the end of the tube because it is crawl space size at the end. The first picture shows the entrance, which was at the bottom of a sinkhole.
This picture is hard to figure out, but it is looking up at the top of the tube. The cave has no lights. Either you bring flashlights or rent a lantern. The inside of a cave defines darkness; you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. So, it was tough getting pictures, however even with a flashlight that ceiling is black. The contour up there is round like the top of a tube.
This last picture shows the side of the tube. Note the difference in texture, it shows the flow marks of the river in the lower half and the rougher texture as the top of the tube cooled at a different rate. We found this whole thing pretty fascinating.
Tomorrow we leave Oregon heading east on our way home. We will probably make a stop or two along the way. If we have WiFi we'll keep you updated. We are hoping to make Boise tomorrow and camp Wal-Mart. It has been an interesting adventure and we have enjoyed sharing it with you.
We visited three very unusual and unique features in this area today. The first was Lava Butte, a cinder cone. When the Newberry volcano area was active, this cinder cone blew up sending cinder bits all over and left a depression. There is a trail around the cone from which the following pictures were taken. At the highest spot on the cone they built a ranger lookout station for fire watch. Note that the cinders were red, due to the high iron content.
The second feature we explored was a Lava Forest. In this area, molten lava came into a forest of trees and encased the tree. Of course it incinerated the trees, but left these columns or tubes depending on whether the tree was standing or had fallen. The pattern inside these columns reflect the texture of the bark. The area is huge and looks so god forsaken, you wonder how things can be growing in here.
The first couple of pictures show the overall area.
This picture is where a tree was standing when the lava flowed in.
This is a tree that was down. Parts of the tube have cracked and fallen in.
The lava runs in excess of 2000F, so the trees are vaporized. The energy, devastation, and shear size of this area really put the earth's forces into perspective.
The third feature we visited was the Lava Cave. This is really a lava tube, like a paper roll tube. It was formed by a river of lava where the upper and side sections cooled while the lava inside remained hot enough to continue flowing. It left a hollow tube. They are not that uncommon in volcanic areas. There are over 500 of these tubes in the volcanic areas in central Oregon.
This one is essentially a cave that starts out about 50 feet in diameter and about a mile later is only about 4 feet in diameter. Over time there are areas where some of the ceiling has fallen to the floor. Water also runs through carrying sand that covers the bottom to several feet in depth. You cannot traverse this cave to the end of the tube because it is crawl space size at the end. The first picture shows the entrance, which was at the bottom of a sinkhole.
This picture is hard to figure out, but it is looking up at the top of the tube. The cave has no lights. Either you bring flashlights or rent a lantern. The inside of a cave defines darkness; you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. So, it was tough getting pictures, however even with a flashlight that ceiling is black. The contour up there is round like the top of a tube.
This last picture shows the side of the tube. Note the difference in texture, it shows the flow marks of the river in the lower half and the rougher texture as the top of the tube cooled at a different rate. We found this whole thing pretty fascinating.
Tomorrow we leave Oregon heading east on our way home. We will probably make a stop or two along the way. If we have WiFi we'll keep you updated. We are hoping to make Boise tomorrow and camp Wal-Mart. It has been an interesting adventure and we have enjoyed sharing it with you.
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