Getaway, Day One

As you can likely tell from the dynamic title of this post, Carrie and I recently took a little excursion to Idaho. We needed a few days to get away, let ourselves relax a bit, and get ready for a race that I decided to run a few months ago. So last week, we packed up our bags, hopped into the car, and took off on the scenic route to our destination.

There were a number of places that we wanted to see, and so we planned our route according to these stops. On our way to the first one, we had noticed this strange designation on the map, EBR-1. Try as we could to figure out what it was, we truly had no clue.

That is, until we started driving along the road where this EBR-1 was located. That's when we saw this sign.

Anything with a light bulb and the nuclear sign inside of it just has to be a place to see, especially if you want to glow in the dark or lose all your hair. Nevertheless, we decided that we would pay a little visit to this historic landmark.

We got to the turnoff where EBR-1 was located. This was when we discovered what the EBR stood for. See if you can make this same discovery from this sign.

Yes, we had found the first Experimental Breeder Reactor in the world! This place, established in the 1950s, was the first nuclear power plant. It has since been closed down and parts of it sealed up tight (at least we hope so!!!), and now is open to the public for free tours. Having lost our fear of glowing in the dark or hair falling out, we proceeded up to this historic building.

Inside, they took you on a tour of the various steps necessary to obtain nuclear energy. We both found it rather interesting. The tour was self-guided, and there were only a few other people in the building that day. We followed the arrows and read from the brochure, fascinated by the process of turning mere elements into power to bring light bulbs and radios and refrigerators to life. Of course, many of the signs contained warnings, likely to keep anyone from doing something that might place the rest of the world in danger.

After getting our fill of nuclear energy (yes, I know I have the worst jokes ever), we got back into our car, and took off for our original destination (No, EBR-1 was not in our original plan).

We hadn't made it very far down the road, though, when something else caught our eye. A hill, with lots of numbers all over it. Want proof? Here it is!

There was even a little food place in the town at the base of this hill called Number Hill Grill. We never did see anything which explained why the numbers were there. Maybe it was someone who went crazy from the nuclear power plant!

After seeing that un-natural wonder, we finally arrived at the first stop that we had planned, Craters of the Moon National Park. It's a park where they let you tour through some 2,000 year old lava flows. There are some very interesting patterns to the lava, as you can see here.

For the most part, the park asks people not to walk on the lava. It truly is amazing what all scientists can learn from observing even an old lava field. For instance, they monitor the lichen that builds up on the lava, and can tell how the atmosphere is changing with pollutants, ozone, and other problems.

But then came some of the really cool stuff. There was a mountain of old lava rock that you could climb up. It seems that we picked one of the windiest days to make this stop, with the wind pushing us up the black mountain ahead of us. Here is the pathway that we took to the top.

Imagine climbing a mountain of gravel. That's not too different from what we had to do. However, from the top, you could see miles and miles of lava rock in all directions. So we stood at the top, took in the view, and then made our way down.

As we descended, we wanted to show everyone just how steep this hill was. But I think this picture, which Carrie took, is really cool. Doesn't it look like I'm merely floating with a black background behind me?

Okay, maybe it's just me. Needless to say, the trip down the hill was much easier, even though the wind was much stronger coming down than going up.

We then made our way through some more of the park. They have one section where you can see the "volcanoes". These are the cones which build up around where the lava flowed out 2,000 years ago. Here is what they looked like in the distance.

We actually climbed up on a couple of these and peered down inside. In one of them, the snow was still about 10 feet deep, since the sun never reaches the inside of the cone, and the temperature stays pretty chilly. In the larger one, it was sad to see that some people had decided to throw their water bottles down into the bottom. If you ever go see geological or natural parks, please don't litter like those people did.

Now, years ago, as the lava flowed, something interesting would happen. The lava on the surface would cool, while the lava underneath would continue to flow. When the lava was all expended, this created vast tunnels under the surface of the lava field. In some places, the surface had collapsed to reveal large caves or tunnels. So, me being me, I climbed down into one just to check it out.

Looks pretty cool, eh? We saw several of these tunnels before we once again loaded up in the car.

Later that afternoon, we arrived up in Sun Valley, Idaho, the location of my race. That evening, we checked into our room, and then decided we needed to rest after such adventures. After all, this was just the beginning of the trip. Just wait until you hear how the next day went.