Here is a Google Earth shot of where I live.
Click the pic for a larger size.
The pin at the bottom is where I live.
The area to the left is black lava. The gray areas are high desert==sagebrush and...lava rock.
The whiter area at the top are sand dunes. Some good-sized dunes. Plenty of people go flying over a dune in their ATV, etc. and crash onto...lava rock. Lava rock is some unforgiving stuff.
Most of the topsoil here is loess. It is blown in.
The Grand Tetons are to the right a few miles and Yellowstone above them. Craters of the Moon are to the left not too far out of the picture.
There is a fair amount of geological diversity here.