With wind as our constant companion, we rolled across the Snake River Plain to Arco (“We’re not in the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from here”), Idaho. A bear-like dog roamed free, glistening posts and knocked over grills marking his territory. Like an unwanted house guest with no travel plans, the wind howled and shook the motorhome as we settled in to enjoy the first Saturday of College Football, including Auburn’s victory over Louisville.
Our taste for the trappings of home satisfied, we ventured to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Thousands of years ago, lava flowed from a great rift in the earth, covering hundreds of square miles and dotting the landscape with cinder cones and spatter cones.
Unlike our trip to Newberry National Volcanic Monument, this time we came prepared for cave exploring by wearing clothes not tainted by the environs of Mammoth Cave. The Ranger applauded our environmental sensitivity when issuing us a permit to enter the caves. Exploring the caves and tunnels formed from lava tubes proved a big hit.
Traversing Indian Tunnel, no longer a cave due to several cave-ins exposing its innards to the sun, required scrambles over several rock piles.
The climb out of Indian Tunnel through a small hole served to remind those flexibly challenged of our limitations.
A path across the lava field marked only with stakes led us back to civilization.
The kids completed the Lunar Ranger program and, later that evening, the Junior Ranger program.
Craters of the Moon highlights the power of Nature. Buildings dotting the scrub plain on the other side of Arco reflect man’s efforts to harness Nature’s power. More nuclear reactors (over 50) have been built on this plain than anywhere else in the world. Now part of the Idaho National Laboratory, Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 (EBR-1) became the first power plant to produce electricity using atomic energy. That was in 1951. A few years later, Arco became the first community powered by atomic energy.
Deactivated in 1964 and declared a National Historic Landmark, EBR-1 now welcomes visitors.
The control room:
The reactor (hole in the floor) and part of the reactor core:
Learning about radiation:
Learning exposure to radiation decreases with distance:
Studying the cooling system:
Working the manipulators for remote handing of radioactive material:
The view through 34 panes of leaded glass of the remote manipulators used to handle spent fuel:
Simulating start-up and control of EBR-II, the successor to EBR-I:
At last the kids have some insight into the Imagine Dragons song “Radioactive.” Mission accomplished. Time to move on to the nation’s first National Park.
That looks like one of the strangest places on earth! Great experience in the power of nature. I’d really enjoy doing those things.
Plenty of cool things left to see, Rufus. Come on out and join us.
That reactor looks really cool… See any zombies in those caves?
Mutant zombies…dressed like a 10 year girl and 12 year old boy.