Travels With Jack

Well we left Yellowstone and landed in Arco, Idaho to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument and EBR 1 the first place to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Jack was unimpressed with looking at fields of lava (cinder) formations until he discovered "lava tubes", better thought of as caves, which he could explore. Then he was all over the place. One cave which we all started out in I gave up on halfway through when I had to climb over a huge pile of rocks. It was the thought of coming back down them that put me off. So I waited topside for them for what was becoming a worrisome amount of time, when all of a sudden they emerged behind me from a big hole in the ground which I had cautioned Jack against falling into on the way to the cave entrance.

Down the road apiece was a nuclear power research center dating back to the early 50's where they began research on peaceful uses for nuclear energy. It is simply known as EBR 1. We took a self-guided tour, and even though It has been shut down for years it is still scary to see Jack at the controls. Look out for nuclear meltdown!!

Before returning to camp we had a delightful dinner at Pickle's Place, a local dive and home of the atomic burger.

 

After that we proceeded to Salt Lake City, Utah. The best thing there in Jack's mind was the swimming pool. He was a great sport though and even seemed to enjoy our bus tour of the city. I hope he soaked a little of the Mormon history in the region.

He thought the best part of the tour was lunch - it was cafeteria style like at his school. He also loved the fountains in Temple Square. Personally, I liked the gardens and we all enjoyed the free organ concert at the Mormon Tabernacle.

 It turned out to be a good day for touring the city as it was the first rainy day of our trip and a city kind of looks the same in the rain or shine.

There were a lot of other things we saw. The University of Utah is very interesting. The campus  is imbued with historic buildings dating back to a civil war era fort and from the 2002 winter Olympics.

There are several monuments to the early Mormon settlers, and the capitol building is the loveliest I have ever seen. It is modeled after the Washington Capitol, and I think it is actually lovelier. Luckily the weather cleared by the time we returned to camp so Jack could get in his daily swim.

Next was Bryce Canyon. There isn't much to say about Bryce. It is simply for exploring and admiring. God in all his glory put some effort into this one. We took a rather adventurous hike into the bottom of the canyon to get the true perspective of its grandeur. Then we drove the highway around the rim to the various viewpoints and took a few short walks to the best vantage points. For those of you who may never get this experience, why not just sit back and enjoy the visit with us.