Scheppkes Go Atomic

The way I planned this trip was to start with the fact that we had a reservation for two nights in Yellowstone in the absolute height of the tourist season. Hey if that's the case, we might as well go all out with the tourism thing. That means consulting roadsideamerica.com to see what tourist attractions show up on the road from Salem to Yellowstone and back. Turns out there about 26 of them. I made a list and we are trying to hit as many as we can. So far so good. We skipped the museum with the two-headed calf in Boise because the Grant County museum already had three two-headed calves on display. Other than that, I think we have seen them all.


On Day 3 we woke up in Twin Falls (or "Twin" as I heard a local call it). First stop was a visit to the Snake River Canyon, just a stone's throw from our motel. This is where Evel Knievel made his famous failed jump in 1974. Sure enough, there's a vandalized monument commemorating the event. And two miles down the river from that is the earthen ramp that Knievel sped down in his "Skycycle."

After a quick trip to get a little closer view of the ramp we went to Shoshone Falls (pronounced "sho-shown") which would be pretty spectacular if there wasn't a dam right behind it and big homes built on the banks above it, and if the water of the Snake River didn't look a pretty unhealthy green. Am I wrong, or is the Snake just kind of a glorified irrigation ditch for S. Idaho.

Then it was on to the first of our two major destinations for the day, the Shoshone Ice Caves. To get there you drive through some pretty desolate desert. The Ice Caves have been a big tourist attraction since the 1950's, and like many classic tourist attraction, it shows its age. But the tour was fun, with a teenage guide doing a good job of remembering his lines. The caves are corny, and cold -- 29 degrees -- which oddly did not feel cold after being in the hot midday desert above.

After the Ice Caves we continued to head north, and after an aborted visit to Hailey (I thought it had something to do with E. Hemingway, but I was wrong, that's Ketchum, farther north), we headed east past the "Mountains of the Moon" (a lavascape of which there are many in Oregon -- not interested). Then we came to the strange little town of Arco that boasts a lot of attractions, including the fact that is was the first city in the world to be powered by "Atoms for Peace." It was time for a late lunch so we stopped at a local cafe and I had an Atomic Burger.

After Arco, the highlight destination of the day was not far away. The Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 -- EBR-1 in government-speak -- was a hoot. It's the world's first nuclear power plant and has been lovingly preserved with all the creepy control rooms and reactor rooms and "manipulators" that you can try for yourself. Shades of Homer Simpson! We thorougly enjoyed our self-guided tour and got a lot of pictures. The one staff person seemed really glad to see us. I don't think they get a lot of tourist traffic. I don't know why not, except that it is in the middle on nowhere. In Idaho.

From there we hit Atomic City, ID, which is mostly a ghost town. It looked to me (from some signs on abandoned buildings) like it was named Twin Buttes, but changed its name to Atomic City as a way, perhaps, it change its fortunes. It didn't work.

We cruised through Blackfoot, the Potato Capital of the potato state, home of the Idaho Potato Expo, which has a giant cement baked potato outside. Finally we made it to Idaho Falls, where, for the second night in a row we managed to book one of the last motel rooms in town. Amazingly, we found a southern BBQ place that wasn't bad at all.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Southern Idaho and our first day at Yellowstone.