Amelia visits the Moon for her Birthday
When the initial trip was penciled out we were supposed to be settled in at our campground in Custer SD for Amelia’s birthday. There would be horseback riding and probably a zoom call or two. But then the delay happened. And we’d be traveling for a good portion of the day on Amelia’s birthday. Everyone’s birthday is understandably lackluster this year, but it was our family choice to hit the road, so I wanted to make sure that we did what we could to make this birthday unforgettable for her - not because it was the worst, but because it was special and unique.
We woke up after our quick overnight in Vale, OR. Normally we do presents after cake, but when Amelia woke up and immediately started asking for presents we just let her have at them. Earrings, books, a jewelry making kit - just a few small things to open, as her horseback riding was “the” gift. But everyone loves opening a package.
I cooked the cake in our convection oven, and we took off as soon as it was done baking. Once arriving at the KOA in Arco, ID she frosted her own cake. They took a quick dip in the pool (once it cleared out), Then we treated her to some fried shrimp from the KOA kitchen (this was a GREAT surprise - as she always asks for seafood for her birthday and I had told her I wouldn’t be able to make that happen). We sang happy birthday, ate cake, then packed up for our evening adventure!
See, on our way to our RV park we passed Craters of the Moon National Park. We were planning on going anyway, but I asked Aaron to pull Big Dan and Little Ann in front of the visitor center to see if I could get a junior ranger packet for the kids before the visitor center closed. When I went to retrieve it there was a sign announcing that they were going to be running a Dark Sky program that night (there is zero light pollution in this park), featuring an astronomer and an astrophotographer. It would be from 10-12. I returned to the RV with puppy dog eyes and asked if we could push the limits of our bedtimes and patience and have a really late night for something spectacular. Everyone was on board.
We arrived at the park with about an hour to explore some of the trails and driving tours of this truly unique and bizarre landscape. Underground lava came to the surface not through violent eruptions, but flows and spouts. This created the geological area that is covered in lava rock of different formations. It is so other-wordly that NASA sends astronauts here to train for lunar exerucions.
And then the grand finale - the talk. The kids laid on a blanket in the parking lot, staring straight up to the heavens, and absorbed all of the info about how the stars move, stories of constellations (which my greek mythology-obsessed kids devoured), and learned about the planets, saw a handful of shooting stars that were “OOOHHH! AHHHH!” worthy, and of course the comet NEOWISE. We even got to see the international space station zoom by. Amelia declared this the best birthday ever, so I’m happy now knowing that this strange birthday during a strange time will bring back happy memories when she is an adult - the year she literally got the stars and a comet for her birthday.
