Craters of the Moon Lava Field

When you think of Idaho, I bet you don’t think of it being an inactive volcanic site, but that’s what it is. President Coolidge designated a large area in southern Idaho as a national monument, and called it Craters of the Moon, based on what people could see of the moon at the time. Scientists now know that the craters on the actual moon are the result of meteors more so than lava.

You don’t have to fly across five hours of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii in order to see a 750,000-acre lava field and learn a lot about the origin of the Earth itself. Visit Idaho.

Goodbye, Yellowstone

The Snake River Plain has long fissures of volcanic activity called The Great Rift.  Yellowstone National Park is part of the same tectonic area as Craters of the Moon and about every 2,000 years, there’s volcanic activity there. Care to guess how long it’s been since the last volcanic activity?

You guessed it; we’re ripe for another blow up. We could wake up tomorrow morning and find that Yellowstone as we know it is gone. Its ultimate destiny is to look like Craters of the Moon.

Years ago scientists said Mount St. Helen could blow up. And it did. And Yellowstone could too. All that beauty and nature that’s part of our national psyche could be gone tomorrow.

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. It slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy.

When we think about something ancient, like our planet, we think of it as being permanent because our lifespans are so short in comparison, but everything’s in a state of flux. Life is change. Yellowstone won’t be here at some point. Some day future generations will say, “Man I wish I could have lived to have seen Yellowstone” but then again, they’ll have other marvels of their worlds.

So if you’re not embracing change in your own life, just remember, change IS life. Just because your life is tough right now, hold on, it will change. You think you’ve got it made right now? It will change. Life is never steady state.

So carpe diem, (seize today). It’s all you have. Just like Yellowstone, tomorrow you might not be here either.  Some day, I can promise that you won’t be.

View from Cinder Cone 1 from TamelaRich on Vimeo.