In the morning, we headed for Yellowstone. Our hope was to head out hwy 212 towards Billings, but it closes in mid-October. When we went into the park, they had a big sign saying it was closed, so we planned for a different route. It still took us through a part of the park we hadn't been to yet.
We stopped at most of the stops this time. We say the Norton Geyser Basin, the Lower Falls, the Mud Volcanoes and a bunch more. It was lots of fun and lots of walking, though tiring. We ended up leaving Yellowstone around 5pm and started working our way towards Billings.

We got to Billings last night and just stayed in a Walmart parking lot. This morning, we were getting up to go have breakfast with Sara (Joe's sister) and her boyfriend. It was fun to be able to sit and chat for a bit.

We are now on the road and headed for home. Our hope is to get at least partway through North Dakota today, find someplace to stay, then be home tomorrow night.

I'll get photos posted once we get home.
-Miranda

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We did check out Craters of the Moon National Monument. The most recent lava flow there was about 2000 years ago. The rock there was really neat. So many fun formations. We drove around the loop they have there to see the volcanoes and lava flow. There were also some caves. They were a lot rougher than the lava beds, and they were a lot shorter, but still very neat. The two we went into had ice and were quite cold.

We debated on staying in the campground there, but decided against it. We figured it would be better to get closer to Yellowstone. There was a state park before Yellowstone, so our hope was to stay there. I finally looked at the weather for Yellowstone though and it was supposed to be in the teens that night! We decided we would just be driving through, not camping there at all.

We started driving, but right around the time the national forest started, we started climbing a mountain. At that point we realized, it was going to be a cold night. Instead of waiting for the state park, we found a road and drove down it a short ways, then parked. We emptied our sink water and hopped into bed.

Neither of us slept very well. We kept waking up, making sure Curly and Pickles had some blanket on them to help keep them warm. In the morning, the temperature was 16, so I have no idea how cold it got, but it was pretty chilly.

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Saturday we drove after we let the cats out for a while until we reached the Oregon/California border where Lake Goose State Park is. State parks have showers, so we stayed there for the night. In the morning, we headed out again and basically drove all day again. We stayed at a rest area near Boise last night. Our aim today is the Craters of the Moon National Monument.
-Miranda

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We apparently decided to keep with the theme of adventure, so on Wed. we headed out for a hike from the campground towards Schonchin Butte. Schonchin has a hike to the top of it and a lookout tower. We bushwhacked through behind the campground a bit seeing if we could find any caves. This landscape was impossible to get lost in, but we still brought extra stuff with us just to be safe.
We ended up walking about 10 miles. It was fun, but tiring.

On Thursday, we took a break in the morning, but in the afternoon we headed to the cave loop and did a few caves. Once we got to the end of the loop, Joe's knee started acting up, so we headed back to the RV.

On Friday, Julie and Emma showed up. We took them in a bunch of the easier caves. They had lots of fun. The plan was to leave on Sat. but we wanted to do the Catacombs with them. So, Sat. morning, we got up, got ready to go and headed up to the Catacombs. Wow it was tiring. There was so much more belly crawling and just plain crawling than I remembered. We all made it to the very end and signed the book! After we finished, we headed back to camp and packed up and made lunch. Julie and Emma headed back home. Joe and I headed south and east.

We did stop in the National Forest south of the park. We let the cats out for an hour, then headed out. We were going to stay longer, but then Curly wondered off farther than we were comfortable with, so we gathered them up and headed out.

I'll try to get photos up from the lava beds once I get them uploaded.
-Miranda

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We arrived at the campground in a favorite park of ours, Lava Beds national monument. Very remote, No roads, etc for dozens of miles in many directions. After dinner, we decided we would run off to Heppe Cave, a 4 mile bike ride and half mile trail, but figured we would just have enough time. We traveled into the cave, which had three large 30' - 50' ground openings, connected by 300' caves. After getting to the last opening, we found we could easily get back up, and decided to take an overland shortcut back to the trail. It turned out the ground cover was different in this area, and we had trouble seeing far, and getting through the thick 10' bushes. After going a bit and searching around for the giant (we thought un-missable) cave openings, we started worrying as it was getting dark. Loose lava rock, spiny bushes, and thick bushes forced redirection, making it impossible to keep a proper unchecked heading. We tried to head back to find the end of the cave, and failed. We discussed the only nearby road which was running north and south about a half mile away. We figured safest bet would be to head due east asap while the sun was setting. We rushed forward. Unfortunately it was very cloudy, and difficult to tell the proper sunset direction. The ground cover continued to get more difficult. After an hour of rushed, pained bushwhacking, the sun fully set and we could no longer deduce a proper heading... Fighting any worry we decided since we had hooded sweatshirts and flashlights, the best bet would be to stay put until the, hopefully cloudless, sunrise showed us proper East. We were foodless, waterless and fireless so were slightly limited in options. There was some wind, so we looked for low ground with good bush cover, and dug in a bed, preparing for the 30ish degree night. We lay there conserving heat and energy for a long couple hours.... . . . . I was getting sore and decided to go for a walk around the area within shout distance. After coming upon a clearing I discovered the clouds nearly fully clearing. Located the big dipper, and started trying to recall the north star bit.. Which part of the big dipper points to it? I yelled for Miranda to join me. We both thought the front of the spoon pointed to it. She also believed she remembered that the north star is a part of the little dipper. We eventually found the harder-to-identify uglier little dipper. However there was a far brighter star (possibly planet) but 120degrees opposite of the proposed (pretty dim) north star, this caused us to doubt our astronomy. We decided that even if we were going off the wrong star and the bright one was correct, the only result would be us heading north instead of East. this would only send us along the road and negligibly off course. So, we decided to hike for 40minutes Heading Directly east via the north star. We trotted on, luckily more clear ground now. After 10 short minutes, we came upon the road, each went a different way, I found our bikes a quarter mile down, and biked carrying Miranda's back to her, We got home 25 minutes later happier to be in a comfy bed than in a very long time. We survived! So, we now, will never forget, the big dipper front of spoon does point at north star, North star is reliable navigation, and always bring a fire starting method ANYWHERE ;)

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