These flowers were spaced at even intervals on the cinder hills of Craters of the Moon. I managed to get this close-up without leaving the path. It irritates me immensely when I see people leave the path at National Parks, frequently right next to a sign telling them to stay on the trail.
Craters of the Moon is a National Park in southwest Idaho. It is a very striking place, and we were lucky that we were there on a relatively cool day in August, since the temperatures can get very high in the summer.
Dry Falls Park is a Washington State Park formed around the remarkable landscape left when a lake in present day Montana emptied catastrophically several times during the ice ages when a glacial dam failed. It’s almost half way across the state from Spokane, where we were visiting for the World Science Fiction Convention. Jack had camped there as a youngster with his family, but didn’t really remember much about it. The sky was almost white due the effects of another catastrophe: the wildfires consuming the Northwest while we were traveling.
On our last day in Banff, we went to the Banff Upper Hot Springs. I went upstairs afterward to the viewing deck to take this phone.
The Bow River is in the foreground. From Lake Moraine we drove back to Banff along the Parkway, which was a lot less crowded than the alternate route, which is known as the Trans-Canadian highway.
The color of Lake Moraine, a glacially-fed lake, was almost unbelievable.
