Craters of the Moon - Oh, Oh!

     First: we have a broken spring on our RV.  Rick noticed that the wheels on the right side of the trailer were very close together - almost touching.  He climbed under the trailer and saw that the leaf spring was broken.  It is Friday and after 5pm in an area where no one works on weekends.  The campground owner gave us some places to call.   He also looked at the RV and said that he thinks we shouldn't drive it to Idaho Falls which is 70 miles away.  We will make calls tomorrow.  We'll see.

     The day started out nice.  We had an easy drive across the southern part of Idaho from Boise to Arco, Idaho.  We put our RV into a campground and then drove back to Craters of the Moon National Monument.  This is a 750,000 acre area covered with craters, cinder cones, lava tubes, fissures, caves and rifts.  There are some paved walking trails, hiking trails and a  larger area that can be used by 4-wheelers.  Some sections are covered with huge piles of very rough lava, some smooth, almost glassy, flows of hardened lava, and piles of cinders which are now growing wildflowers.  Other areas have trees, sagebrush, and wildflowers.  It was hot and very, very windy.  We were told that this was one of the cooler summer days.  We are at 6000' though, so the temperature should drop a lot by early evening and be very cool by morning.

    We spent a couple hours at Craters of the Moon and then returned to the campground.  We were planning our drive home and when Rick went to the truck to get the maps he noticed the odd closeness of the tires.   He came in with a very deep sigh and said that we have other issues to deal with due to the broken spring.  The tires are already a bit worn from rubbing together so we aren't sure how long ago the spring broke.  Maybe today, maybe a week ago.  Ah well, at least we are not worrying about getting back to work.