Since I am only planning this trip one day at a time, and since I really know nothing about this part of the country west of the big parks, I stopped at the Jackson, Wyoming visitors center today. I can say for sure that I did not know what to expect because the last time I stopped at a visitors center was 20 years ago in Erie, Pennsylvania and the only information they had was the location of the next closest Chucky Cheese / Applebees. I was today, as usual, wrong. A person named Michelle spent almost an hour with me plotting potential routes over the Tetons. Who know I needed to cross the range to get west? We decided on Teton Pass into the Teton Valley of Idaho which would get me to Arco, Idaho, en route to the moon craters. What I also did not know is how beautiful this Idaho valley is. Endless miles of wheat fields, rivers, cliffs. And, probably I am one of the last to know this (and I quizzed friend Bill S. tonight and he laughed at my quiz but he is in this industry) the massive landscape east of Arco is, see photo, the largest nuclear reactor testing site on earth. My clue to this information was about 200 miles of signs that said "restricted area" and then, my ever faithful historical marker.
In Arco I weighed my lodging options. No campgrounds, no rest areas, and quite a few motels. I shopped only slightly and found a room for $30, and it is a wonderful room in a nice motel with a very hot shower....and it is one block from Melodies Steakhouse. At Melodies I had a delicious and reasonably priced dinner and I met Steve. Steve owns a cow farm with 300 cows and today one of them kicked him in the back of the leg. I guess I should know more about this stuff given that Pennsylvania is, by all measures, an agricultural state, but I was still impressed. Seems that range cows, who have lived in luxury, surprise, on the range all summer, are now "getting attitude" as they are being trailored back to the safe winter environs of the farm.
As I was planning my next leg this evening I realized that I do use whatever means are at my disposal to map the following day...evidenced by this albeit blurry photo of my maps, my laptop, my cellphone and my Garmin. I guess I am ever more impressed with the early global navigators.
What I did find out is that Redwoods National Park is closed for the next two weeks. Why, I don't know (don't they know that I climbed these trees as a young boy, not brother Dennis, but me), but this sends me south of that park to Eureka, CA. Who could not go to Eureka, CA.
2 comments:
In Eureka you will have an opportunity to learn how the indigenous native Americans, the Wiyot's, were persecuted and massacred for decades by the European settlers.
Some of the worst carnage and most systematic destruction of a culture ever documented, you can learn more about it at Fort Humboldt State Park, on the SE edge of the city.
And who exactly is taking all of these pictures of you??
I can just see you setting up the self timer on the camera and racing around to look like you're just going about your life.
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