Mormons, Mitt Romney, and the Moon

Once again, we have enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the Sheraton Club. However, this time we had sufficient seating for our meal. As I was masticating my food, I reminisced about the best Sheraton Club I've been to, which was in New Orleans. The Sheraton Club in Niagara Falls comes to a close second. After breakfast, we hurried to the Mormon Conference Center for a wonderful musical performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I really wished that the performance was still in the Tabernacle because the acoustics were not as nice in the Conference Center. The external waterfall starting from the roof was a really nice touch though. 

So we made our way into the Conference Room to be seated for the performance while being completely under-dressed for the occasion. When the live broadcast was about to begin, a speaker announced many of their "special guests." This included Mitt Romney, whom received the longest applause even though most people probably didn't know where he was actually seated or looked like. I didn't concur with many of Mitt Romney's beliefs so I was apathetic toward what he looked like as well. This was evident after the performance when everyone took a picture of the wrong couple, including myself. 

After the broadcast was completed, my family and I quickly loaded the car to head to Idaho. Our first stop was the Golden Spike National Historic Site. We even got to experience a replica of the original steam engine to go along the tracks. The paint job on the engine made it seem like a toy train that belonged to a little 5 year old boy.

                                                                 

My brother neglected to ask for the Junior Ranger program until after the train demonstration. So we were delayed for a while. Especially when he couldn't answer the questions correctly from the booklet. I wanted to also do it however I feel that I am a little old for it now. I really hope that the National Park Service will start a high school program soon. So after waiting in the car for 40 minutes, I was told to go back in to the visitor center to check on my brother and mother. I helped them find the answer to the question and we were on our way within 15 minutes. We were in a rush to reach the Craters of the Moon Visitor Center before it closed. I took a short nap on the road there. When we first reached the initial gate, I was quite puzzled by the black rocks surrounding the road. We made the visitor center before closing time so that we can stamp our passports and I also bought some stickers in WPA print. The visitor center was closing very soon so we used the bathroom one last time and left to take some hikes in the park. As we pulled into the first parking lot, our car was hit by a rock thrown by a girl standing with her mom and sister. At first the mom defended her children, when all we did was get out of the car to check for dents. Later on she made both of her children apologize to my mom. We hiked the paved trail along the lava formations. I think it would be much more interesting if you could just walk across all of the rocks. The temperature was rather hot because all of the rocks were black. Walking up some of the hills was really hard because the rocks were so loose. I would definitely go back one day to hike some of their trails that go into the caves. While I was there I learned about two types of lava called Pa' Hoe Hoe and A'A'.

  

The difference is just how it flows. Another interesting I learned about is that if you look at some of the cones and see that the actual cone is splatter-ish and messy, it shows that those cones are the newest. They actually mark the end of the lava flow. I was able to relate a lot of Biology and Earth Science into this stop actually. There were two cones fairly close to each other although one was almost twice the age as the other. The newer one had less foliage and vegetation because ecological succession occurred later. The older one was much more developed. I think in a few hundred years the rest of the terrain will become much more luscious with shrubs and flowers. Ecological succession is already beginning with the lichen. On and beside the trails, there are many extrusive rocks that cooled quickly. You can identify them as quickly cooling rocks because of the gas pockets. After completing this National Park, we headed to Sun Valley where we enjoyed a really good but expensive meal at CK's. I ordered lamb which was really good. The dessert, however, was the best way to end the day on a sweet note. We drove another 15 minutes after dinner to reach our lodge which was surprisingly very nice.