Volcanos.

Wow. We're in Boise and realizing that very quickly we will be in Seattle. In fact, one week from now we'll be in Albuquerque at Annie's wedding and 9 days from now we will be in Korea. Awesome. Originally we planned to stay in Boise for one night to see my friend Sue from quite a few years ago in Michigan. Then, Matt Tutsky moved to Boise from NYC - who saw that coming? So we're here for two nights. One night for Tut, one for Sue. Love it.

Today we took THE OREGON TRAIL from Craters of the Moon National Monument to Boise via Goodale's Cutoff. Way cool. It was even easier than the circa 1980s game we used to play. We didnt have to keep track of heads of cattle, Hannah didnt fall in while we were forging the river and Becky didn't die of dysentery. We drove a cool 70mph on the "back road" and were constantly passed by Idahoians for our sluggishness. Pulled off on the side and had lunch looking out over the valley to the mountains. Then I curled up in the passanger seat and allowed the car-colepsy (car-narcolepsy) to take over while Hannah safely delivered us to our destination. Probably not the same as the covered wagons going way out of their way to avoid Indian attacks.

Also, thank you for the tip about Craters of the Moon. What a place. We really enjoyed the lava caves and camping on you know, 2000 year old lava flows. Speaking of lava flows...

Yesterday we left Yellowstone and crossed the Great Divide. Yellowstone was amazing. First off, mid-late September is the time to go. It was busy, lodges were full, but compared to the July-August craze, it was low density and really easy to get around. Any hike that was over 250ft long was almost empty and we had almost every summit to ourselves for awhile. Shout out to Emily Miller who gave us a great top 5 list.  Bear Tooth Highway - super cool. Artist Point was phenomenal hike over the river/canyon with huge waterfalls. The road was closed at the point so it was just us when we got there. Fairy Falls, and hot spring hot springs hot springs. We stayed at the Old Faithful Inn in the original part of the now expanded lodge, had a beer watching Old Faithful go off in our newly purchased Western attire = a w e s o m e. Had a couple drinks with a lesbian couple our age who we accosted at the bar. And had some iceberg salad for dinner. Yellowstone has some work to do on their vegetarian offerings. Pictures will come soon. They are on Hannah's camera instead of the droid. We thought we'd like Yellowstone, but the park is so diverse that we left feeling like we wanted a few more days to see it. We'd have loved to get up to Mammoth or over to the lake.

Its been so fun to read everyone's emails and comments - Thank you! Keep them coming!