Day 3 - Craters and Falls

 Boise, ID

After a very lazy Sunday morning and a fully loaded breakfast with the Bathurst fam, we grabbed our Walmart order, repacked the car, and hit the road - not too sure what we were going to do just yet. We took the detour to Shoshone Falls, ID, a great suggestion from Monica!

After that, we made (mostly me made, I think) the decision to go check out Craters of the Moon National Monument. I really wanted to try and grab our national park pass for this trip, and I thought it would be cool to get there as the sun was going down. I was able to convince everyone to go as there is a car loop through the park and they wouldn't have to get out and hike anything. It's like they've never traveled with me before... About halfway into the park, we found this giant lava rock hill that someone was definitely climbing on, so I wanted to check it out.

Turns out it was a lot taller than I thought. Hayden joined me for the hike up, and we did NOT regret that hike! We were able to see almost the entire park from up there.

Well, we saw what we could through the smoke. The air/smoke are definitely affecting things, even though we aren't close to the fires right now. After our short tour of the park, we headed to Boise - later than I had anticipated, so it was another late dinner. We made a quick trip to see the capital building:

When we got to the hotel, I tried to pull up my reservation only to find that it had been cancelled because my card wasn't working. This is the second hotel that was having issues with my card. Even though I put in all of the states for this trip, it looks like I'm still going to have to call the bank to get that squared away. Oh, and the online banking wasn't working. Good think I had backup and she let me keep the room with another card, because it was already 11:30p and hotels were not cheap in the area!

Today's Totals:

498 miles

$365 - gas is killing me.

Today's Lessons:

1. Amazon locker is SO EASY and convenient. I shipped a pair of water/hiking shoes to a Boise locker and easily picked them up last night. It's just a locker that you scan/enter in a code, the locker opens up, and you are all set. 

2. If the hike up that hill is any indication of what kind of shape I'm in, I'm going to really have to kick it into gear if I think I'm pulling off a Tough Mudder in 2 months!

3. Boise is a much larger city than I had anticipated - very much a college town.