Day 7 - To the Moon!

Day 7. One full week on the road. This is just gonna be a quickie and no time for pics. We didn't get a chance to post last night because we tried something different - driving at night. We just wanted to let y'all know we were not mauled by grizzlies nor did we drive over a cliff. On the way out of Yellowstone we drove by the Bald Eagle Mgmt Area and witnessed an eagle sitting on top of a tree, right by it's nest. Very cool. From there we headed to Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. Acres and acres of balsaltic lava rock formations. Quite the eerie place. Then we drove down past Twin Falls to see a formation called Balance Rock. On the approach we were driving through miles and miles of farmland that didn't look all that different from Ohio, only flatter if you can imagine that. Then WHAM! all the sudden we were driving through 70 or 80 foot high rock formations. Talk about a sudden change of landscape. And then we saw Balanced Rock. A 40 ton, 48 foot high, 40 foot wide boulder, perched on a platform that was about 3 feet by 17 inches. Our next destination was Nat-Soo-Pah, an RV park with a swimming pool feed by geothermal springs. We arrived about 9pm, an hour before they closed. Just enough time for some swimming and several trips down the waterslide by the kids. We put them in their 'jamas and drove the 30 miles down to Jackpot, NV and decided we'd go a little farther since the kids were about to crash. Wells, NV was only another 50 miles or so down the road. The Super 8 was booked full and most of the other places looked to questionable for a nice midwestern family of four to spend the night. After driving around a bit we decided to head for Elko. Elko was pretty booked too but Wanda at the Motel 6 said if we drove 25 blocks (short ones) down to the Esquire Inn at 5th and Idaho they would have a room at the Motel 6 rate. Uh, OK sure. It was late and we were desperate! So we did, and sure enough they had a room. So that's where we are now and our immediate plan is to get the %$# out. No, it's not that bad but not a place where we want to hang. So TTFN, TTYL, etc. etc. I'll try and get some pics from Craters and Balanced Moon up later today, probably tonight.