We left home on Wednesday morning and headed south. After crossing the wide open spaces of southern Alberta and northern Montana, we followed the Missouri River for awhile and drove through beautiful green mountains. Sometimes it’s the unexpected surprises that make traveling so much fun though.

Yesterday morning, we stopped at a rest area near Blackfoot, Idaho so that Richard could change into shorts and I could refill my water bottle. We ended up taking an easy interpretive walk through a high desert area known as Hells Half Acre. Thousands of years ago, molten lava seeped through fissures in the ground, hardened and created a rugged and fascinating landscape. Over the years, junipers, sagebrush and prickly pear cactus have taken hold in the thin patches of soil in the clefts between the rock. The cactus were in full bloom; something neither of us had ever seen before.