It's cold in this barren wasteland

I wanted to see the Crater's of The Moon National Park before hedding into Yellowstone and the half way point along two lane highways was The Shoshone Ice Cave.

most of this section of Idaho are "active" lava flows. Active as in there could still be an eruption from the volcanos that made them, but haven't done so in 2000 years. The Shoshone Ice Cave is a great road side attraction in that the attraction is truly stop worthy and it combines it with that great American need to sell something. Anything. As if descending into a cave filled with ice (even during summer!) isn't enough, they have the ubiquitous cement dinosaur

and gift shop selling rocks, Indian arts and crafts and this little piece of kitchy Americana

. After waiting 45 minutes for the tour the group of 4 of us were led over barren fields of volcanic rock, down cement reinforced steps to a creeky wooden door. It got cold really fast as the wind from the caves dropped the temp about 30 degrees in as many feet. The guide told us that the early settlers in the area knew about the caves and mined the ice to sell in local taverns as the only cold drink west of the rockies. The gov't got their hands on it in 1937, "ruined" the place and sold it to some guy in the 50s who restored it. What remains is a large cavern with a 20' thick ice floor. I tried taking pictures, but they didn't come out. I bet you can find some on the interwebs if you look. Okay fine I'll do the hard task of searching for it for you here: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=YCh&q=Shoshone%20ice%20cave&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

It's cold in this barren wasteland

Shoshone, United States