Let's see... spent the night at the Red Lion 8-story octagonal motel in Idaho Falls. On the way out of town realized that the hotel is really too far from I-15 to act as good advertising for itself. Perhaps the investors thought Idaho Falls would be the next Chicago and they'd make an investment in the future by putting up the first (and now last) midrise in town?
Sat in the parking lot for a while and tried to decide what to do. Ultimately settled on going back out on 20N/26W to visit the first nuclear reactor to produce a usable quantity of electricity, and then head on to Craters of the Moon National Monument.
About 20 miles out of town I saw a marker for Hell's Half Acre Lava Hike so I pulled off to give it a look. It's an enormous lava field (If I recall correctly, about 10 miles wide and 20 miles long) and a 1/2 mile loop has been laid out through it. I figure that sounds likes an interesting thing to do, so I grab a jacket and head off. A secondary sign at the trail head explains that there are blue-topped poles marking the loop, and red-topped poles marking the 4.5 mile path to the lave source. That sounds much more interesting and ambitious, so I go back to the car and grab my hiking boots, a bottle of water, etc. and head off. It's probably 25F out or something like that, but there isn't any wind to speak of and it's pleasant enough. I figure if it turns out to be a 3 hour hike that it could be quite enjoyable.
About 5 minutes in I've figured out a few things:
I got to the extremal point on the loop and see the first of the red-topped poles. I start to head off in that direction and it takes a lot of picking and maneuvering about to get to it. At this point I've barely started the long hike, it is clearly going to take a long time, I'm out there completely alone in a field of ankle twisters and man eaters, and of course it starts to snow. So now the nice shiny surface of the pahoehoe lava will be slippery to boot. So, in what is now becoming an unfortunately familiar refrain, I decided the smart thing to do was to turn around and hike out before things got ugly.
Got back on 20/26 and continued N/W. Turns out the nuclear reactor is "closed for the season". It's free to the public from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and closed the rest of the year. Perhaps outside of the summer seaon the number of visitors is so piddly it doesn't make sense to keep it open?
Get back on the highway and continued to Craters of the Moon. Passed through a few more fly-speck towns. A handful of places are selling "Atomic Hamburgers", "Atomic Pickles" and the like. Got to Arco and they've got a big sign over the chamber of commerce (?) saying Arco: First City in the World Lit by Atomic Power. From there it was a pretty quick drive on to the park.
Craters of the Moon billed itself as "The strangest 75 square miles in the world" or some equally silly quote from a long ago explorer. I was pretty underwhelmed by it. All of the lava was interesting (Pahoehoe -- smooth, and Aa --rough) but there was too little geological information for my taste. There was a very annoying walking loop (the Devil's Orchard) through one area which almost exclusively consisted of signs talking pollution/conservation/precious jewel/stewardship aspects of national parks. I probably agreed with 100% of what they had to say, but I didn't come there to be sermonized at, and they're preaching to the converted anyway.
In a rather strange oversight they'd have these walking loops with no indication whatsoever as to the correct direction to take the loop. I took the first loop counter-clockwise only to discover I was reading the signs in the reverse order from what they intended. So I took the next loop clockwise only to discover that once again I was going the wrong way around the loop.
The place was almost completely deserted. Probably didn't help that it was 20F out and flurrying. Took an interesting walk out to some caves that formed when the lava cools and hardens on the outside and continues to flow on the inside, eventually leaving a lava shell around an empty tube. To my surprise, all of the caves were "wild" -- the park service hadn't done anything to light them, make them safe, accessible or anything else really. The path would end at a cave and you'd be staring at a hole in the lava and a series of 18 inch or bigger boulders to scramble down and over to get inside, and once inside you'd presumably find more of the same.
Given my aversion to caves, the fact that I was the only one there, my choice of a meager penlight as a light source, and the nice layer of snow starting to cover everything, I opted against exploring any of the caves. Probably would be pretty neat to somebody who was so inclined.
On the way out I stopped at the visitor's center to see if they had anything interesting. A very meager showing -- a little display showing the animals that live in the lava fields and how they survive, and little else. A sign somewhere in the parkhad promised information about how people used to survive here, but I couldn't find any such information. I'm not sure why they'd try to survive here -- why bother? It's not such a big area that they'd even have to go across it, they could just go around.
There was a little bit of equipment showing the air quality, etc. in the park, as part of their neverending preaching. It mentioned that if the ozone concentration was 10ppm that corresponded to a softball sized volume inside the room. I thought the more interesting statistic was that meant the room could hold 100,000 softballs, which sounds like a very big number. I guess if you think of it as 50 softballs on a side , it actually sounds like too small a number. It was a proper sized room -- I wasn't standing in the handicapped stall in the men's room.
From there I got back on the highway and I guess didn't really stop until I hit Ely on I-80 in Nevada. Actually, that's not right. I pulled off the road in Twin Falls, Idaho and sat in a mall parking lot reading for a while. Traffic had gotten heavy and fog had rolled in. I wasn't enjoying getting bullied by every moron in an F150 who thinks 50mph is the right speed for 250 feet of visibility.
One interesting thing I noticed throughout Idaho is that the people are for sure outdoors crazy. Or at least they love to go hunting, which is kind of the same thing. You could up in a town of 1,000 people and they wouldn't have a car dealership or a place you could get a decent meal, but they'd have an ATV store and 3 gun shops.
I was constantly seeing pickup trucks that either had an ATV loaded in the bed, or were pulling a trailer with a couple of ATVs on it. The most interesting one I saw was a pickup with a gooseneck (5th wheel) camper trailer. There was a platform mounted over the cab of the truck, and up there was perched an ATV. It wasn't at all clear to me how it got up there. It didn't look like the platform was articulated and could be folded down to the ground, like something off a car carrier. I guess there must be a multi-piece ramp assembly stashed somewhere.
Got to Ely, where Mike and Ling and I had stayed before, and decided to stay at the Ramada "Copper Queen", because it allegedly had cheap rates and was of average quality. Checked in and of course the rate isn't what was advertised ($65 instead of $38) but in no mood to go run around and try to find something cheaper. The Ramada is spread over two buildings -- a hotel with gambling machines, where the office is located, and a motel across the street. I took a room in the motel because it was cheaper, and I certainly didn't care about gambling.
I'm quite sure that's the same building Mike, Ling and I stayed in before, but this time it was quite horrible. I could hear every truck going by on the road, all of which were using their engine brakes to maximum effect. In fact, I could quite plainly hear the guy in the next room, who from the racket he was making was probably dying from tuberculosis. Feeling like a tool, I called up the desk and told them the room was too loud and so forth. Without giving me any grief they moved me across the street to the hotel, which was a lot quieter. The motel had single pane windows (pretty dumb, given the highway noise and the weather) and the hotel had double pane windows I think, which probably made a big difference.
Wandered over to the hotel "restaurant"(picture a snack bar at a swimming pool) which was billed as "the" place for pasta in Ely. I assume they meant it as praise for the restaurant, and not as criticism of Ely. I wasn't able to convince myself that anything on the menu wouldn't suck, so I went back to my room and read and skipped dinner.
Posted by Matthew Eldridge at November 24, 2003 01:17 AM | TrackBack