Westward Ho!

After seeing EBR-1 I continue west, avoiding the interstate, I’m driving on highway 20 and now start seeing signs for the Craters of the Moon!

Craters of the Moon turns out to be an entire valley made up of nothing but very recent volcanic rock and soil (around 2500 years old). The whole place looks like something from The Road, really neat.

Continuing West

After Rigby I drove another hour or so and started seeing sign for EBR-1, 20 miles ahead!

Turns out that out in the middle of desert scrub sits the site of the world’s first electricity producing nuclear reactor, the EBR-1.

Stopped in, took the tour, very cool as well, the first nuclear plant and the invention of TV, within an hour of each other in the middle of nowhere!

Heading West

Driving kinda randomly west at this point, about an hour after leaving the mountains I see a sign announcing the upcoming Town of Rigby – Birthplace of TV!

Yup, the town of Rigby, population not very much at all, is where a 14 year old Philo Farnsworth dreamt up the idea of using vacuum tubes to hold a video image.

I couldn’t pass this one by. Stopped in, paid my $2, was curtly informed that the museum “Isn’t just Farnsworth you know!”.

The museum also had a nice, unrelated, collection of barbed wires of the ages!

I’m Going to Jackson…

South of Grand Teton is the tourist trap town of Jackson, at this point, after checking Google maps, I think I should start heading for home, from here it’s likely 2-3 days drive.

I turn west from Jackson and start climbing the Teton Pass, Highway 22. Amazing drive, very steep, no trucks allowed. Stop in Wilson for lunch.

Grand Teton – How they are supposed to look

Leaving Yellowstone, into Grand Teton National Park

Not far south from Yellowstone is Grand Teton, named for the group of mountains that rise up strikingly from the flat plane around them, unfortunately it was cloudy at this point, I took a ton of pics but the clouds showed up in all of them.

Yellowstone and Me

Yellowstone – Old Faithful

I only waited literally about 3 minutes after arrival before the show started.

Yellowstone – Old Faithful

Old Faithful isn’t really all that faithful, it actually erupts between 65 and 115 minutes after the previous eruption. The faithful part comes from the fact that the time until the next eruption can be estimated fairly accurately by the duration of the previous one.

Yellowstone – active steamy steam