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Tue |
Layton to Great Salt Lake State Park Camp at Ogden Wal-Mart |
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Wed |
Ogden to City of Rock NR Camp at NR visitor center |
I am merrily driving toward City of Rocks and see a sign to Golden Spike NHS. I guessed this was the site of the east-meets-west railroad junction and I was right! Add another national park to my visitation list. I also discover that the very remote land along the way (it’s 30 miles to any sort of tiny town) is the land of rocket science testing. It is Thiokol’s Rocket Propulsion facility where the fuels for rockets are made and loaded into the rockets. Yes, the space shuttle solid rocket boosters are made, tested, and filled right here in the middle of nowhere. Bunkers go for miles and are separated by thousands of feet. I got to see some burning of excess waste fuels that made for spectacular fires. Thiokol has a Rocket Museum of the many rockets made here, shuttle, minuteman, numerous other small missiles. Also, Autoliv Corporation is right over the next hill and they make the explosive charges for your automobile airbags! The great spike NHS is interesting as it talks about the railroading of the west with the two lines meeting right here in Promotory, UT. Two different firms one starting in the west and the other starting in the east built the first transcontinental rail. This is where they met. The two steam locomotives that were there that day of the joining were recreated and actually run every day. On to City of Rocks, an internationally renowned rock climbing mecca. 40 miles of washboard gravel road to get here but nothing in sight along the way, that made up for the bumps. Arrived late so I went to the Almo Creek Outpost for a bite to eat and had a great potato casserole and met a real rancher Mr. Gerald Marchant who has 350 head and uses several thousand acres of the NM land. He lives at N42.24804 W113.78936. Best way to get in to the City is via Oakley, there is only some 15 miles of gravel by taking this route. |
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Thur |
City of Rocks to Craters of the Moon Camp at NP |
Judging by the names of these places I made quite a journey eh? From the City of Rock to the Craters of the Moon. Driving along the miles and miles of prairie and farmland all of a sudden there is a 10 foot tall flow of black lava jutting right out of the grass. Have I really landed on the moon? This is the weirdest landscape around. Nothing but black undulating lava. No real volcanic cones, nothing. What happened here is the lava flowed up form cracks in the earth rather than erupting from volcanic cones. The lava just flowed around on the plains making a spectacular mess! |
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Fri |
Craters of Moon to Grand Teton NP Camp at NP |
First thing is to hike out onto the lava plateau to the lava tubes with flashlight and helmet in hand to go under this lava slab and see the tunnels where the lava actually flowed. It’s a wild place on top and a wild (and very very dark) place underneath. Leaving the park the highway route follows the Atomic Valley, vast, and I mean vast expanses of land with an occasional building complex. This is where the uses of the atom were explored and new nuclear technologies were invented. Passed through the tiny town of Arco – the first city powered by nuclear energy, the site of EBR#1, (Experimental Breeder Reactor #1) and the entire INEL now INEEL (Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory where the nuclear Navy was built. More reactors were built here than any other place on this planet. Continuing through the Snake River gorge (positively gorgeous) and the Grand Canyon of the Snake River. Geeze, I wish I had gotten a fishing license a few hours ago and I would have been fishing this spectacular river. Through the now bustling town of Jackson (Hole) which is far too crowded for me now and on to the Tetons! |