Frank: Today this is going to be a “Guy’s Blog”, a
manly blog. There will be no girly prose
here today for we are going to speak of big, nasty, manly machines and rough
killer terrain. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
My buddy Richard up in Ennis told me about both the EBR1
and the “Craters of the Moon” in Arco, Idaho.
Now Arco is about as small a town as it is possible to get. One Main Street with one traffic light
flashing Red/Yellow, and about the most pleasant RV Park (Mountain View RV
Park) we’ve been in a lot of years. How
Arco managed to situate itself between the EBR1 and the “COTM” Monument is
beyond me. Not to mention that all three
of them are about 50 miles away from the nearest anything in any direction. There’s a whole lot of nuthin’ in that part
of Idaho!
The EBR1 is the “Experimental Breeder Reactor #1”, the
world’s first nuclear reactor. It was
built in 1951 and decommissioned in 1964 and is now open to the public. Tours are free and I happened to walk in
during a slow moment and got a personal tour.
By the way, a “Breeder Reactor” is one that produces more
nuclear fuel than it consumes. Now
that’s a neat trick! I’ll ‘splain how it
works. You put U235 (which is scarce),
next to U238 (which is plentiful) and the U238 becomes U239, which can be used
like U235! Cool huh!
Besides the tour I spent a lot of time in the parking lot
looking at what appear to be huge heating systems or furnaces for large office
buildings. What they really are, are two
prototype nuclear powered aircraft engines for a proposed Air Force
Bomber. The plane never happened. The project was scrapped before it got off
the drawing board, but the engines actually ran! They each have almost 200 hours of real
operating time. This wasn’t theoretical,
them suckers ran! They also built the
(then) largest domed hanger in the world about 40 miles out in the desert for
the plane, and a lead encased tractor-locomotive to move the monster
around. They had big plans! (I wonder what that hanger is being used for now.)
EBR1 is about 18 miles east of Arco. Eighteen miles the other way is Craters of
the Moon National Monument with its vast fields of (formerly) molten lava, and
impressive tubes from which the lava flowed.
Vignette
1: We were looking for EBR1 as we approached
Arco but didn’t have a street address for the GPS. We did have the “Coordinates” so we entered
those and the GPS promptly took us hither and yon and eventually down a small
road that petered out to a dirt track heading out into the desert with a sign
next to it that said: “End of county maintenance. Next gas 110 miles.” We decided that 1) it didn’t really look like
the type of road we wanted to drag the rig down, and 2) since there was a big
equipment yard available for a u-turn that we should take it as a sign to turn
back. So we did.
Later at the RV Park I asked for directions and she said,
“Go to the traffic light, turn right and go eighteen miles.” So I did and there it was, right on the side
of the highway. We had actually driven
past it on our way into town. I have no
idea where the GPS was trying to take us.
Sometimes I think that thing hates me.
Vignette
2: We ate free today. Breakfast was a free serving of pancakes,
eggs, and coffee at the RV Park in Arco.
Can you believe that! I love Good
Sam RV Parks! Lunch was leftover chicken
from our dinner last night at the same RV Park café. Tonight’s dinner was a mess of free
vegetables from the garden of the RV Park, here in Caldwell, Idaho. After he checked us in the owner led us to
our spot and then pointed out his “garden” (It runs the full length of the side
of the RV Park) and said there’s corn, squash, onions, carrots, melons, (and a
bunch of other stuff I don’t remember).
Help yourself! So Cheryl went
“shopping” and then sautéed a huge pan of fresh vegetables. I ate two full ears of corn plus the big
plate of veggies she put in front of me.
I feel soooooo healthy! Once
again, I gotta say, I love Good Sam RV Parks!
Ride on! Ride
safe!
Frankie
(Cheryl will do some girly prose tomorrow.)
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