Though we may have wished otherwise, we had to start driving back east sooner or later.  But that wasn’t all bad: on our way out of Idaho, we just so happened — by which I mean planned — to make a stop at the bizarre and awe-inspiring Craters of the Moon National Park in eastern Idaho.  That may seem like an odd name for a decidedly terrestrial park, but it’s quite apt: long ago, generous amounts of lava covered the landscape, leaving it looking a little like some of Hawaii’s jagged lava-covered areas, but without the Hawaii.  It’s impossible to miss the park’s boundaries, as there’s an abrupt change from the typical Idaho landscape to the park’s hard black lava crust.

After a brief stop at the visitor’s center, we moved on to our first destination: the frighteningly-named Inferno Cone Overlook.

The Overlook isn’t nearly as scary as it sounds; rather, it’s simply a large hill that provides a fine overview of the park.  The climb is a little strenuous, but it’s worth the effort.  But, of course, before I undertook the climb, I took a few pictures of the Overlook and its surroundings.

Though the Overlook appears barren, the park’s landscape isn’t entirely devoid of vegetation.  But generally, where there aren’t small trees or various scrubs, there’s lava.

With the initial photos out of the way, we started up the hill.

When we reached the top of the slope, we were assaulted by a brutal, unrelenting wind.  This wasn’t your standard tousle-your-hair-wind; this was a wind strong enough to knock me over if I didn’t concentrate on just standing up.  However, a few of our fellow tourists took advantage of the wind.

When we recovered from the initial blast of wind, we noticed the top of the hill looked as barren as the slope…

…But further exploration revealed some hardy vegetation that stubbornly defied the harsh conditions.

And remarkably, though the tree grave pictured above looks ominous, one tree managed to stand tall on the hilltop.  Its exposed roots make it appear to be hanging on by its fingernails, but despite the wind’s best efforts, it wasn’t going anywhere.

But on the whole, those patches of green were definite exceptions.

As every American knows, the Fourth of July goes by another name: National Entertaining Explosions Day.  (Oh, and it’s called Independence Day, too.)  Since our visit to Idaho happened to include our nation’s most gunpowdery holiday, we were happy to discover the local municipality celebrated the holiday with gusto — in fact, it boasted one of the largest fireworks displays in the state.  Even better, southwestern Idaho’s generally flat open landscape afforded us the luxury of avoiding crowds and traffic by enjoying the fireworks from several miles away.

It occurred to me just recently that I neglected to finish posting the photos from my trip out to Idaho last year.  That neglect ends now, mostly because that trip resulted in some great photos.

After our visit to Silver City, our next destination was the Old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise.  As indicated by its name, the penitentiary is enjoying a leisurely retirement, hosting curious tourists and even the occasional wedding at the adjacent warden’s residence.  (No, I’m not kidding.  They were setting up for a wedding when we arrived.)

The old dining hall building has seen better days:

Fortunately, most of the buildings are in considerably better shape than that.  Some of the old rules are still in good shape, too:

I know what you’re thinking, and no, we didn’t loaf in that area.  Instead, we moved on to the old solitary confinement facility.

If it looks unpleasant, there’s a good reason: it was.  We didn’t loaf there either — after all, the prison laundry was waiting.  And keeping the air moving in the laundry was a blower from a familiar city:

Oddly enough, though the company went out of business twenty years ago, there’s still a website for the American Blower Company.

From there we proceeded to one of the more relatively recently-constructed cell blocks.

The accommodations were…uh…spartan.

Several of the cells displayed some of the prisoners’ artwork.  Unsurprisingly, the general theme of the artwork was hopelessness.

Death row and the prison gallows are part of the tour, and on the wall in the facility is a display of some of the prisoners who met their end at the prison.  One such prisoner displayed a surprising sensibility prior to his hanging:

Once outside death row, my dad began to plot his escape:

Since I am a freelance photographer for the local paper, I have regular encounters with the word “deadline.”  However, even as much as my deadlines can loom large if I push them too far, they’re nowhere near as ominous as the deadline at the Old Idaho Penitentiary.

It’s not difficult to imagine how the deadline got its name.  And to enforce the deadline, guards watched over the population from atop the prison’s old stone walls.

Oddly enough, maybe 100 feet from that particular tower is a curious anomaly in the prison’s otherwise unwelcoming personality: a rose garden that was established long ago when the prison was still a prison.

Standing outside the main prison was a smaller facility for the fairer convicts:

The informative display in the women’s ward held one paragraph that made us Michiganders first take note and then scratch our heads in bewilderment:

I’m desperately trying to hold back a flood of Detroit jokes right now.  Desperately.