Day 13: Bayhorse Lake, Idaho to Antelope Island State Park, Utah

Today began with a white knuckle drive back down the 8 mile gravel road. Going downhill with a trailer is always more stressful than going uphill, so we got up bright and early in hopes that we would make it all the way down the hill without having to try to maneuver around an oncoming car. Our plan worked. We got down the hill in no time and soon were on the road to a nearby National Monument--Craters of the Moon. 

After an hour and half drive or so, the vistas transformed as we approached the Craters of the Moon. Many many many years ago, lava flowed through a rift in the Earth's crust creating a lunar-like landscape of volcanic rock. A nice one way scenic loop gave us a quick and easy tour of the park and its cinder cones and "lava bombs" that hardened in mid-air and landed as solid blobs of rock. Geologists expect this will happen in the area once again in the future. 

After Craters, we headed to lunch in Blackfoot, Idaho. Home of the world famous Idaho Potato Museum and delicious Rupe's burger and milkshake shack. After choosing down on some delicious burgers, tots, onion rings, and frozen treats and posing with the giant baked potato, we hit the road again....in search of Utah! 

This time our final destination for the day was Antelope Island State Park near Syracuse, Utah. A seven mile bridge leads to the island in the Great Salt Lake. A herd of 700 bison lives there along with antelope, elk, deer, rabbits, and many birds. After setting up camp, we piled back into the car to drive the scenic loop on the island where we saw some of the island's wild inhabitants while also waiting for it to cool off a bit outside.

Before long, the sun began to set and we headed back to our site to make dinner and watch the sunset over the lake. The pictures I took don't do the sunset justice. Our view was so fantastic that other campers left their sites and came to ours to check it out! 

After dinner and some relaxation, we headed to bed to rest up for the next day's adventure. We would have slept great...except for the dude who ignored the quiet hours (10 pm - 7 am) and ran his obnoxious generator until 2:37 am and restarted it at 6 am. 

At least the generator woke us up well before it got hot outside, so in the morning we packed up while it was still cool and headed out towards the highway. On our way off of the island we saw a 6 point mule deer running along side of our truck! It was a nice way to end our visit to Antelope Island State Park!