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From Portland we crossed the Columbia River into Washington and went north to Silver Lake. We parked at Silver Cove RV Resort near the town of Castle Rock, WA. Our primary objective for this location was to visit Mount St. Helens.
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Continuing my journey west, I stopped in Willcox, AZ. While here I parked at the Magic Circle RV Park. Earlier in 2016, we stopped over in Benson, AZ, which is about 30 miles west of Willcox. From Benson we visited, Tombstone, Bisbee and Kartchner Caverns.
Arco, Idaho, (pics) is a quiet small town in eastern Idaho but staying here at the Mountain View RV Park allowed us to visit two very interesting nearby sites.
Almost 8,000 years ago, the peaks of Mount Mazama (pics) towered some 12,000 feet above sea level. But eventually, the huge chamber of magma beneath the base of the mountain would no longer be contained. It began to erupt and eventually a series of eruptions formed a ring around the mountain and caused the mountain top to collapse forming a huge caldera.
This 375,000 acre parkland is about 20 miles south of Grants, New Mexico. It is an area of lava flows, lava tubes and caves and cinder cones. This area was formed from volcanic eruptions and lava flows that occurred only about 115,000 years ago.
Here is one of the large sink holes that was formed from when a portion of a lava tube collapsed.
And a portion of the trail in El Malpais.
Second Act 