19 July 2008

Washington State



This trip was originally going to be all about the Rocky Mountains, with lots of hiking and back-country camping as I made my way along the Continental Divide. But my foot injury forced me to redraw those plans. I didn't know it at the time but the new plans ended up being about three very special rivers. First I flirted with the Rio Grande as I traveled through New Mexico into Colorado, then it was the Yellowstone River briefly in Montana and Wyoming, but the river that really captured my heart and my imagination was one I'm embarrassed to tell you I had never even heard of before this trip, the Snake River. I followed the Snake River from it's source, Jackson Lake at the foot of the Tetons (you can see the river in the background of my "fake" Tetons picture) and from there I let it determine my direction into Idaho and beyond. It never let me down. I chose my entry point into Washington to say goodbye to the Snake at the place where it converges with the Columbia River.



And what a great choice, what a great send off. The Sacajawea State Park at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers is absolutely beautiful, a quiet, tranquil place, which I had almost all to myself.






I finally got to use my new camp stove and titanium cookware set.

Quick transit through Oregon




Twin Falls



Snake River Canyon, an agricultural area in the 1800s, now home to a couple golf courses, and the site of one of Evel Knievel's famous jump attempts.



Mist from Shoshone Falls makes a rainbow in the canyon.



I saw another Mormon temple and when I drove by to take a picture I found out it was brand new and they were having open house! It's a very rare opportunity for a Non-Mormon to be able to go inside a temple, before it is dedicated. This is actually the second temple I've been inside, the first was San Diego in 1993.

18 July 2008

Craters of the Moon National Monument



Not far from Arco are these incredible lava fields which make up a very interesting feature of the Snake River Plain.



Interestingly this place was named well before anyone knew much about the moon, when the moon's craters were thought to have been formed by volcanic activity rather than meteor impacts, but sometime after the green cheese hypothesis.






This display shows the "hot spot" on the earth, over which the North American Plate is traveling. Right now the hot spot is under Yellowstone, but 10 Million years or so ago it was here under Craters of the Moon. That make this a very nice extension of any visit to Yellowstone.

EBR-1



This is EBR-1, Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, which lays claim to many firsts among nuclear reactors, including being the first to produce electricity.



The control room!



The generator. On the back wall the scientists operating the reactor signed their names in chalk, commemorating the event when electricity was first produced.



A system had to be designed for processing spent fuel, and that's when these manipulators were first designed. The distortion of the light when looking through the thick lead glass is pretty cool.



Outside the reactor building was something really interesting, these reactor test sleds for a nuclear powered airplane concept. The one on the left is a vertical reactor (the big white part) with the jet engines still attached (you can see them on the lower left of the sled). The one on the right is a smaller horizontal reactor, quite close to what would have actually gone in the aircraft, but the jet engines on this one have been removed. They look quite large to power an airplane but most of what you see here is the sled used for testing and to keep the reactor and the engines mounted firmly to the ground during the tests.



Of course there were the requisite displays on the disposal of nuclear waste.



But surprisingly also in the reactor museum was a display on how the Snake River Plain Aquifer upon which the 890 sq mile Idaho National Laboratory (aka the National Reactor Testing Station) is built, is one of the largest aquifers in the world, supplying water to all those potato farms and most of the people in Idaho. Great place for over 50 nuclear reactors huh?






At a nearby highway rest stop was some more information about the laboratory, including this, the only hint of something more sinister among lots of "Atoms for Peace" rhetoric.



Also at the rest stop was this environmental monitoring station. All the fields were working and displaying data except the one in the lower left corner, the one showing the amount of "environmental radiation"


Arco, Idaho was a cool little town, well worth the stop.

17 July 2008

Idaho oh Idaho



My arrival in Idaho marks another milestone in my travels, I've now been to all 50 states!



One of the first things I noticed about Eastern Idaho was these earth covered barns, which I haven't noticed anywhere else. I saw one that had collapsed too which was pretty interesting. They are sunk into the ground, earth is piled on the sides in mounds big enough to drive on, and the entire roof is covered with earth.



I stopped in Idaho Falls for a picnic lunch along the Snake River, just upstream from the falls. Across the river was this Mormon temple.

Tetons


I love how fake this picture looks!

16 July 2008

Old Faithful - Yellowstone National Park

14 July 2008

Big Sky Country



Big sky country; what does that mean exactly? I like big skies, Arizona has big skies, New Mexico has big skies, Sri Lanka is THE big sky country, but what about Montana? That's what I'm here to find out.



A sign at a highway rest stop provided some clues.



But most of the Montana I've seen so far looks like this.



I missed Harlowton's famous 4th of July rodeo but when I stopped by there was a small rodeo going on anyway.



Passing through Helena I saw what looked to be an enormous mosque. I couldn't believe my eyes! But it turned out to be a Shriners auditorium that is now the Helena Civic Center. Now I understand the Shriners liked to build their "temples" in various Islamic styles but a 16 story tall Turkish style minaret on a theater!?! I think that's a bit much.



A visit to Grant-Khors Ranch National Historic Site gave great insight into Montana's ranching history.



A Beaver Slide Hay Stacker on Grant-Khors Ranch