We planned to go from sea to shining sea on this trip, but did not expect to go to the moon and back! But walking on the lunar-like landscape at the Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho made us feel like we did just that. We rolled into the visitors' center after a rather barren terrain through central Idaho which rivaled the desolation of western Oregon. I can only imagine the nervousness the astronauts must have felt hoping they had enough fuel to get them to the moon and back on their mission as we watched our own fuel gauge drop on the Nissan Armada pulling our trailer across neverending stretches of highway where there was no civilization to see in any direction. We got nervous when we pulled into this gas/cafe along the side of the road only to find there was no gas. The kind woman who owned the cafe told us she just bought the place but not with the gas, so the pumps outside were empty. She asked how much gas I had left and when I told her about ninety miles, she said it should get me to the next town. It did....barely. Anyway, when we rolled into the visitors center at Craters of the Moon we were relieved to get there even though we did not know what to expect. The ranger explained that this unique landscape formed by volcanic eruptions more closely resembles the surface of Mars than it does the moon, but the man who first discovered this place called it Craters of the Moon, and the name stuck. We scaled the black lava dune to get a view of this extraterrestrial valley, mostly at Anna's insistance, because when we drove past the giant black mound she asked immediately, "Can we cimb that?" Exploring the terrain, we noticed that the black rock came in many forms. Some looked like charred cinder. Some looked like hardened lava flows. Some looked like pumice with tiny air holes. None of it looked like any terrain I had ever walked before. CJ and I then explored caves formed by the lava. If I were filming a science fiction movie about life on another planet, this would be a great place to shoot. Speaking of other planets, later that night we saw Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the night sky over the campsite we stayed in in Arco, ID. There is not much in Arco, but they sure have a beautiful night sky. Stargazing and pondering the planets in all their splendor was a perfect ending to our day of walking on the craters of the moon.