Tuesday, 9/8/09, 8:30PM
It was cold last night! It got down to 30 both inside and out side the T@B so I had to dig out most of the extra blankets. The contrast from desert to more ‘temperate’ mountains is going to take some time to get used to. Got up and got packed right away and took off in the truck to explore the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It doesn’t matter how many times I see lava flows but I am blown away with the utterly alien devastation you see. This whole part of the USA is lava flow after lava flow but this stuff is raw and on top of everything. There are flows, cinder cones, craters, tubes and just about everything you associate with volcanism except it is all dormant. No hot stuff. Everything is frozen in place. I hiked a couple of miles on asphalt trails- there is NO way you can do it otherwise. Much of this place is impassable. I took some photos, hooked up the T@B and went. The next bit of driving took me through an area used by the US Department of Energy. The very first nuclear power plant was built here. The little town of Arco was the first ever to be supplied with nuclear generated electricity. I drove to the site and was amazed at how small it was. I toured the Clinton, Illinois plant (one of the last built in the USA) many years ago but the one I saw today (EB R-1) could have fit hundreds of times inside it. Then I headed to see the Grand Teton mountains from the west. I’ve visited Grand Teton National Park a few times which is on the east side of the range. The biggest difference is that you drive through half a state of nearly nothing when you come from the east and you really feel like you are in wilderness when you get to the park. From the west you drive through little towns and fields of potatoes and wheat with harvest in full swing. Finally you enter the Teton Valley which is really picturesque with little towns and farms. Leaving the valley you go over a gem of a pass through the ‘Big Hole Mountains’ with pines and aspens that have no sign of the dreaded pine beetle that has ruined so much of the pines in the rocky mountains. I skirted just below Jackson Hole (35 miles away) and headed south through a ‘bend’ in the road that took me through 70 miles of Wyoming and then on to what I hoped would be a night at Idaho’s famed Bear Lake State Park. Wrong! First of all the truck did it’s heat thing again and quit at the top of a 7,000 foot pass. I let it cool down for 30 min and was on my way. Then Bear Lake St. Pk. was a total bust. I really think the place had been trashed over Labor Day and it was so full of garbage and busted up stuff I bailed out before I even got to the campground. I decided to keep on going on my planned route and, Lo! A KOA materialized about 10 miles down the road. This is a huge resort area but it is like a giant ghost town now. Most schools out here started today so that must be the reason. I can't believe I was within a hundred miles of both Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks and didn't go! I’ll pull out the heater and have a warm night.
It was cold last night! It got down to 30 both inside and out side the T@B so I had to dig out most of the extra blankets. The contrast from desert to more ‘temperate’ mountains is going to take some time to get used to. Got up and got packed right away and took off in the truck to explore the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It doesn’t matter how many times I see lava flows but I am blown away with the utterly alien devastation you see. This whole part of the USA is lava flow after lava flow but this stuff is raw and on top of everything. There are flows, cinder cones, craters, tubes and just about everything you associate with volcanism except it is all dormant. No hot stuff. Everything is frozen in place. I hiked a couple of miles on asphalt trails- there is NO way you can do it otherwise. Much of this place is impassable. I took some photos, hooked up the T@B and went. The next bit of driving took me through an area used by the US Department of Energy. The very first nuclear power plant was built here. The little town of Arco was the first ever to be supplied with nuclear generated electricity. I drove to the site and was amazed at how small it was. I toured the Clinton, Illinois plant (one of the last built in the USA) many years ago but the one I saw today (EB R-1) could have fit hundreds of times inside it. Then I headed to see the Grand Teton mountains from the west. I’ve visited Grand Teton National Park a few times which is on the east side of the range. The biggest difference is that you drive through half a state of nearly nothing when you come from the east and you really feel like you are in wilderness when you get to the park. From the west you drive through little towns and fields of potatoes and wheat with harvest in full swing. Finally you enter the Teton Valley which is really picturesque with little towns and farms. Leaving the valley you go over a gem of a pass through the ‘Big Hole Mountains’ with pines and aspens that have no sign of the dreaded pine beetle that has ruined so much of the pines in the rocky mountains. I skirted just below Jackson Hole (35 miles away) and headed south through a ‘bend’ in the road that took me through 70 miles of Wyoming and then on to what I hoped would be a night at Idaho’s famed Bear Lake State Park. Wrong! First of all the truck did it’s heat thing again and quit at the top of a 7,000 foot pass. I let it cool down for 30 min and was on my way. Then Bear Lake St. Pk. was a total bust. I really think the place had been trashed over Labor Day and it was so full of garbage and busted up stuff I bailed out before I even got to the campground. I decided to keep on going on my planned route and, Lo! A KOA materialized about 10 miles down the road. This is a huge resort area but it is like a giant ghost town now. Most schools out here started today so that must be the reason. I can't believe I was within a hundred miles of both Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks and didn't go! I’ll pull out the heater and have a warm night.
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