Moons and Dunes

It's a little known fact that Idaho has it's own tiny slice of the Sahara, otherwise known as the Bruneau Sand Dunes. Actually, most of Idaho is technically a desert but rolling sand dunes are what most people picture when they're thinking about deserts.

Bruneau Sand Dunes, Idaho

It looks pretty odd, just a valley of sand dunes out in the middle of farm land, looking like they accidentally fell out of the sky from out of Egypt or something. Scientific explanation for them? Apparently there are eroding hills not too far away that create sand particles. The sand is then carried off in a wind heading towards this particular valley. At the valley the prevailing wind, carrying the sand is met by more wind but this one's headed in the exact opposite direction. So, these winds equal out and the sand is dumped in the valley, and there it stays since neither wind is strong enought to carry the sand back out again. Well, anyways, they're definitely a unique feature in Idaho, something to see just to say you did.

Of course, no one comes just to look at them. The fun part about visiting the dunes is climbing up them, and then finding fun ways to come back down! The best way being to sled down! It's like a winter scene in the summer only with sand instead of snow and bermuda shorts instead of ski boots. Or, if you're my brother who's a pretty darn good snow boarder, you can even snow board down them, or would that be called sand boarding?

Another great feature at Bruneau is the nice little lake nestled right at the foot of the biggest dune. It has a beautiful beach and shallow water, perfect for little swimmers.

Noah crawled right in and was happily splashing around, with Bree hot on his heels. Meanwhile, I was determined to make a sand castle.

They had a blast in the water....and I'm still working on the sand castle.

Of course, for Noah, one of the most important parts of any day is the snack food.

The Bruneau Sand Dunes park also has an observatory and is home to the largest telescope in Idaho. Turns out that the middle of nowhere is the perfect place to get a great view of the stars at night, no "light pollution." And, luck was with us, they were having guided star tours the night we stayed there so we got to peek through the 12 ft., 25 inch diameter scope to see the Ring Nebula. We also saw Jupiter and it's moons, and great views of our moon close up.

The moon over the dunes.

But the real bragging rights of any sand dunes trip come from climbing "the big dune" that reaches up 470 feet in the sky. It's a pretty steep hike, but I can tell you, the view from the top is great!

See, that's me, the ant on the very right. That's right, Nefertiti's got nothin' on me!