A’A’ is Hawaiian for “hard on the feet” and
what they called the rock areas you will see in the photos below, so are they
called at the Craters of the Moon.
2000 years ago near Central Idaho volcanoes sculptured the
landscape and it does look like what you would imagine the Moon to look like, but
there is so much more life in the high desert than you can imagine. I am not a photographer so you will see the
wildflowers only. The 223 species of
birds and the small mammals like the pika are too fast, but not as fast as
Pronghorn Antelope which are the second fastest land mammals on Earth (Why when
all their known predators are slower than them?
Keep reading. ) Prairie dogs we have found like to run across the front
of the RV as we rumble past: their villages are along these lonely roads. But so far so good we have only hit insects
as we have traveled west, not that their lives aren’t important but I keep
hoping it is one of the invasive ones destroying the forests that hit our
windshield. Amazingly every wildflower at
the Craters of the Moon I photographed with my phone had a species of iridescent
bees buzzing around it.
The lava rose from many fissures in the Great Rift along the
Snake River making small volcanoes known as spatter cones, lava tubes that make
caves that now are homes to bats and cinder cones. A stark strange landscape.
Why Go West? We have been following part of the Oregon Trail
this summer like last year we followed part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Long before the movement west the Oregon Trail was part of Native American
trails Fort Kearney in Nebraska was
built in 1848 to protect the pioneers and we crossed the North and South Platte
Rivers like the pioneers. They were looking for supplies of wood, water and
grass to feed their horses and oxen. When they reached Scotts Bluff 1/3 of
their 2000 mile route had been completed, but the hardest miles remained. Between 1840 and 1869 500,000 went west to
fulfill their dreams to leave the economic depressions of 1837 and 1841 which
devastated farmers and fur traders/trappers.
Visions of Oregon with towering trees and lush valleys, rich soils beckoned.
We left the trail for a short time on our visit to Dinosaur, but came back near
the Moon where there is the Goodale Cutoff, which compared to the rest of Idaho
route had places with rivers and valleys of farms. The cows in the previous blogg blocked the
road along the cutoff. The cutoff was a successful way to avoid the Native Americans who were uprising along the Snake River.
Idaho must have tested the spirit of the
pioneers. At Three Island Crossing River campground it was 96 degrees when we
arrived at 4 in the afternoon. The
Interpretative Center verified that the first 10 years of relationships between
the European-Americans emigrants-pioneers and Native Americans was cooperative. The Conestoga wagons had been replaced by
smaller prairie schooners, but without the Native Americans helping the
Euro-Americans even the smaller wagons wouldn’t have made it cross the swift Snake
River using the three islands in the middle. The Native Americans provided meat and fish to the emigrants in trade
for cloth and other items. But when gold was found in California the numbers of
travelers increased and you know the story of the slaughtered bison, the
Indigenous peoples lands were trampled by livestock and the campas fields (a
main food source which looks like daffodil bulbs) destroyed. By 1880, the Native Americans were crushed,
the US government herded them like animals to reservations which could not
spiritually or physically sustain them.
The final “evil” was taking their children away to schools far away from
their culture and their mothers. Across the US now we-Euro-Americans are trying
to heal wounds by recognizing the past and coming together with the Native Americans
to make amends, but there is still much to do. THERE IS HOPE. As we left the trail again passing over
Ontario Oregon to lonely Hwy 26 again we couldn’t imagine how the pioneers felt
when they came to such barren lands from the barren lands of Idaho. They were expecting paradise and found life
just as harsh in the Eastern part of Oregon, but there trip was almost
over. We will return to the Oregon Trail
two more times; at Oregon City near where we will camp before our week at the General
Assembly of Unitarian Universalists in Portland. Oregon City was the goal and
the end of the trail. And on the way home trip.
 |
| Spatter Cones |
 |
| Prairie schooner at Three Island Crossing |
 |
| We are standing on top of a cinder cone at the Craters of the Moon. If you look closely you might see the Proud Mary at the bottom. These volcanoes blow about every 2000 years. Pat was real happy it didn't happen while we were hiking. |
No comments:
Post a Comment