The not so Boring Travel Day!

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Today we are moving on—after spending nearly a week in the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area we figure that Wyoming is getting over represented with respect to travel days!! Our objective today is to get some supplies and move both West and North… We woke up at the campsite to find ourselves in the middle of a massive garage sale—it turns out that we nearly closed the campsite down… The campsite would be in business for one more night and then would be turned over to the new owner, who may or may not continue its operation. Oops, just one more example of our excellent accidental planning!!

Statistics

Starting Destination: Jackson, Wyoming
Ending Destination: Ketchum, Idaho
Ending Destination GPS: N: 43° 40.980’ W: 114° 21.953’ Elev: 5892’
Miles Driven: 265.2
Miles Walked: approx. 1.5 miles
Feet Walked Underground: approx. feet
Most Interesting Series of Sequential Road Signs: Do not pass - on a slope - unless you have - a periscope
Seen in Wal-Mart:A store devoted to Fly Fishing!

Getting out of town…

Our first objective was Idaho Falls… To get there we traveled over the Teton Pass with over 2000 feet of climbing in less than 10 miles - it was a spectacular drive but we were glad that we had put the bikes in the back of the truck!! When we reached the bottom of the hill we looked back and discovered that The Tetons don’t look the same from the West as they do from the East - there are a lot more foothills!! This makes sense when you consider how the mountain range was formed. The road to Idaho Falls took us along the Teton Scenic Byway and the Snake River valley before taking us right downtown - it was weird being back in “civilization!” We knew we were back when we could stop at Wal-Mart and replenish our supplies; however, we didn’t stop long enough for Carl to get a haircut, just long enough to find out that the Visitor Information Center was closed on Saturdays and to see the falls from which the town derives it’s name.

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The mysterious EBR-1 and ?

In our general westward trend we took Route 20 out of Idaho Falls… Maria had seen these different looking barn structures on the way into town and asked Carl to stop so we could investigate. It turns out they are used for storing potatoes, when we stopped we were lucky enough to see the local farmer harvesting. After Carl explained that we were from Kansas and knew all about wheat, but nothing about potatoes the farmer even offered to show us around. We declined as we had the mystery of EBR-1 to solve…
If you look at the map there is this red dot along side the road designated as “EBR-1 National Historic Landmark.” This intrigued us, especially as it was located within the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy)… Upon stopping we found out that EBR-1 was the World’s first nuclear power plant, and it was just sitting out in the Idaho desert. It is even open for tours in the summer!! But what was far more interesting was what was sitting in the parking lot…
HTRE 1 & 2 and HTRE 3 are experimental heat transfer reactors which were developed by the US Government in their Nuclear Powered Bomber program - who knew the US Government even had a nuclear powered bomber program? The program was cancelled in the 1960’s, but not until a menu for the anticipated 5 day flight missions had been developed! We made the comment that this equipment was just sitting out in the desert waiting to rust—until Carl noted that the weather station just down the road was reading a relative humidity of 8.4%! (MISSING)
It was further down the road when we came to a road-side marker indicating that within the Idaho National Lab (a 900 square mile facility) over 50 nuclear reactors had been built since 1949 - definitely accounting for the “authorized personnel only” and “US Government Property - No trespassing” signs, the large number of communication antenna’s on the tallest neighborhood Butte and the extremely large number of power lines in the area! In fact it was just a little further down the road we drove through Arco - the first town in the “free” world to be powered by Nuclear Energy!

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Craters of the Moon

In the 1920’s when the Craters of the Moon National Monument was named people didn’t know what the Moon’s craters looked like, perhaps they thought that they would look like the topography within the National Monument? Neither Carl nor Maria knew what to expect when we decided to visit the park, certainly not the stark contrasts of a lava flow. The dark colored lava contrasted against the sky, the fantastical shapes of the lava contrasted with the cinders (like small gravel), the weight of “rock with holes” and the diversity of plants in a place with no ‘soil.” Unfortunately we arrived just after the visitors’ center closed at 4:30 so we didn’t have much time to walk around. However, we did manage to walk up to the top of the Inferno Cinder Cone (complete with grades up to 23%!)(MISSING), see inside the Spatter Cone that still contained snow from last winter and scramble through one of the “Wild Caves” aka Lava Tubes…
A Lava Tube is where the flowing lava cools on the surface but the molten lava is still flowing beneath - the lava drains away leaving the tube behind… Maria had seen Lava Tubes in Queensland and wanted to make sure that Carl experienced one, he was glad that she did!

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Interesting Contrasts

It was getting dark when we left the park—all day the sky had been hazy, but in the evening light a pink color became apparent leading us to wonder whether the haze was due more to fires than pollution. We continued along Route 20 at the base of the Lost River Range until it intersected with the Sawtooth Scenic Byway where we turned north. The contrast between these two areas was quite marked - the Big Wood River Valley is better known for the Sun Valley ski resort… We stopped for the night in Ketchum, getting the last room at the hotel we stayed at and wondering why there were so many people in town… Until we found out that it was the Saturday night of the annual Earnest Hemmingway festival - Earnest Hemmingway? Apparently he loved fly fishing, settled in Ketchum late in life and is buried in the local cemetery.

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Carl’s Travel Trivia

Yesterday’s Answer: Experimental heat transfer reactors, developed by the US Government in their Nuclear Powered Bomber program.
Today’s Question: What famous Native American guide’s hometown is Salmon, Idaho?

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Comments

[Paul Cox]

NOT FAIR!!!!!!!
I thought that contraption was located in the Tetons area and tried to figure what would be there of that nature. But would have guessed no better over in Idaho either. Idaho is the home of JR Simplot, if you have eaten Or-Ida potatoes Tater-tots- or potatoe chips they are a product of his. Some where up there is a large feedlot where they feed the discarded potatoe peelings to the cattle, thus fat cattle are a by product of potatoe production for them.

[The Odyssey]

Rules for Carl's Travel Trivia
There are none!!