By Wayne Brew

My journey continues with visits to national parks that as a bonus require travels along old interstates. The journey to Craters of the Moon is a long drive along U.S. Route 26 in Idaho. Along the way are interesting places like Arco which is the first place in the U.S. getting their electricity from nuclear power. Craters of the Moon is an amazing landscape created by eruptions of basalt lava. I got to climb a cinder cone volcano, step into the craters of splatter cones, and get down into lava tubes.

To get to Yellowstone from Craters of the Moon requires over 200 miles along U.S. Route 20 going through Idaho Falls where potatoes and hay rule. Yellowstone has spectacular scenery, including a breath-taking canyon, waterfalls, hot springs and geysers. Yellowstone sits on a what geologists call a hot spot of magma that lies below the surface that creates the hot springs and geysers. This large caldera erupts every 600,000 years or so with catastrophic effects and is referred to as a mega-volcano.

Grand Teton is a short drive south from Yellowstone and are a rugged chain of mountains that have been carved by glaciers providing spectacular views.

I cannot wait to share the pictures and experiences from these National Parks with my students.

I traveled almost 300 miles along U.S. Route 191 to get to Vernal, Utah to visit Dinosaur National Monument. I had been here before in 1979 when I was hitch-hiking along U.S. Route 40. There is a bed of sandstone that accumulated a large number of very large dinosaur bones that became fossilized. Excavations of bones started in 1909 and the site became a national monument in 1915. It was eventually decided to preserve one area and stop excavation. In 1958 a large structure was built to allow visitors to view (and even touch) the dinosaur bones embedded in the sandstone.

While I was in Vernal I drove to Craig, Colorado where I worked as a coal exploration geologist in the summer of 1979. I was interested to see how accurate my memories were and what changes have occurred. Craig was booming when I was there because the low-Sulphur coal beds put less Sulphur into the atmosphere and were near the surface so could be strip-mined. Unlike Las Vegas, Craig was still recognizable. I was disappointed that the Radio Shack where I bought my first boom-box had been torn down.

I got to travel almost 300 miles along U.S. Route 40 and got to Salt Lake City for a conference. I will be back on the road on Sunday 10/22 when I will trace U.S. Route 50 from Green River, Utah east to Virginia on my way home.