Moon Walking

A couple of Fridays ago, Pete had to work overtime (he normally does 10-hour days, 4 days a week).  His work is about an hour's drive from our home.  Out past his work, about 20 minutes or so, is an area called Craters of the Moon.

That morning, Pete texted me and said, "Hey, since I'm already out here, let's go to Craters."  I was game.

I hadn't been there since I was a kid, maybe in 5th grade.  So the kids and I drove out, and met Pete at his work.

(The sign behind Jake's head says something like, "Warning: Watch your kids and make sure they stay on the path so they don't FALL and DIE.")

They have a visitor's center, which is pretty cool.  But they also have a bunch of hiking trails to go and see the sites up close and personal.  We ended up going on the perfect day-it was kind of overcast and was sprinkling on and off, so it wasn't hot at all to walk amongst the mountains of black rocks everywhere.

We walked on one of the trails that takes you to a cave.  I should say "cave", because it had somewhat of a ceiling, but it was mostly an open hole in the ground.  But it was still way cool.  We even saw some bats flying around in there.

I drew all sorts of parallels while we were walking to the cave and back.  Jakob kept walking on the very very edge of the pretty narrow path.  I was like, "Jake, you've gotta walk in the middle of the path."  And he didn't get it.  I pointed out to him that we don't know how strong the rock is on either side of the path, and if we were to walk there and it gave way it could be dangerous.  Also, I showed him that there were large drop-offs on either side of the path.  I told him, "Jakob, if you were to be on the very edge, and slip even just a little, you will hurt yourself."  I thought about our path in life, how we need to be constantly vigilant, and we shouldn't even flirt with dangerous edges; the middle is the safest way to go.

It was a really fun excursion.  It also made me very grateful for the hard-working husband that I have.  There's no way I would drive (or ride a bus) for an hour to get to work, especially so early in the morning like Pete does.