Craters of the Moon National Park

We slept in as we needed a little rest after yesterday's evening drive and our first stop was just half an hour away. The Bruneau Dunes State Park offers little walks and sand dune activities like sandboarding. It was still pretty cold in the morning so we just walked a 5km loop around on the dunes covered in all kinds of animal tracks. It lead us around a small pond with lots of ducks complaining constantly and loudly about our presence.
We took a few photos with our star, Ruedi and then continued on to the Craters of the Moon National Park. Unfortunately the lava caves were already closed due to the freezing temperatures but all of the walks were open and we did each of them 😁 The scenery was really otherworldly with sharp rock formations looking like freshly dug out. The little snow fields made the view of the intense black lava even better! We absolutely adored the views 😍
Next up was a stop at the potato museum, which was unfortunately already closed but had a big potato on display 🥔 The state's slogan is "Famous potatoes" and the (delicious!) instant mashed potatoes come from here.

For the last stop of the day we drove to a local restaurant (turned out to be a small chain) for a potato based dinner. There weren't any main dishes for potatoes so we stuck to the potatoes for sides: potato soup and baked potato 🥔😍 Besides that the complimentary first course was a surprising highlight: Idahoan scones with honey butter!

We resupplied a bit at Walmart and then drove an hour North for our night's rest stop. The temperature dropped to -8 degrees but it didn't feel that cold.Read more