gnumatt

I got to Idaho and

I got to Idaho and spent the night in Malad City. I was desperate to get off the interstate. Interstates have their place when you want to get somewhere quickly but all that convenience comes at a cost. I looked at the map for any place that looked like it would be interesting. One place was the “U.S. Sheep Experimental Station” and the other was a small dot called “Atomic City.” I called a friend who had access to a browser and asked him what he could tell me about the USSES and he couldn’t find anything that presented a compelling opportunity. I hit the old highway and started heading west towards Atomic City.

I hardly saw any cars on the highway and the green hills rolled gently all around me. It may sound odd but this is how I had always pictured Ireland looking. It’s no wonder the people that moved here thought it would be perfect for growing potatos. When I got to Atomic City it was like many towns in the West. It had a post office, gas station, bar and a few houses and mobile homes. I saw a few old, rusting cars parked near the mobile homes. Within 30 seconds I had circumnavigated the town. I was fascinated by the rugged determination these people must have to still live in this desolate place, or at least get their mail there.
I decided I wanted to get a picture and this old service station seemed to be the perfect representation of the town.

I stopped my car and took the picture. As I was getting back in my car I noticed three white Chevy Blazers that seemed to come from nowhere. I took the little road back to the state highway as one of the Blazers slowly followed me. When I turned left on the highway he just sort of stopped and followed no further. Later on I would notice lots of government signs all along the road telling me where I could and couldn’t go. It turns out the area is a testing ground for all sorts of government environmental engineering. I’m sure the complete lack of insects and vegetation was because winter was still not over in Idaho. In fact, later on I would find a sign informing me that they had chosen the spot because of desolate landscape.

I didn’t go down the state highway too far before I was rewarded with a little gem. I had stumbled across the worlds first nuclear power plant, EBR-I.

I hope the codename it had was much cooler. It looks very different from modern nuclear power plants. It didn’t have any cooling towers. It wasn’t the sprawling complex of tubes and pipes I’ve seen elsewhere. What I could see at least, was just one small unassuming building. Unfortunately it was closed for the winter and nobody was home. Although I liked the complete freedom to wonder about the power plant outside the fence. If it hadn’t been near an unmarked military base I would have hopped the fence and poked around. However, the warning signs become more and more threatening the further in you get and I thought better of tempting them. Also you never know when those white Blazers might be watching you.

I was amused by some signage on one of the doors. How cool would it be to contact the CFA Landlord and see what rent is in an old atomic power plant in the middle of nowhere.

The one thing that was not fenced off were two nuclear aircraft engine prototypes. They were sitting in the parking lot. Apparently a lot of money was spent developing a nuclear powered aircraft that would never have to land. Can you imagine how cool it would have been to build cities in the air that used these engines? JFK cancelled the aircraft engine project. Despite the tremendous cool factor I can see how even more social injustice might have been waged on the planet. I imagined the wealthy taking to the new cities in the air and letting terra firma rot in its own waste beneath them. The big problem with the engines was that they were the size of a small house and very, very heavy. Apparently the technology was very promising though. I’m surprised commercial developers haven’t picked up on the idea.

I had never expected Idaho to be anything great when I got there. It was just part of this desire to collect 49 states by car. Since then I’ve thought about it often. I also read an article in Outside magazine that named part of the Bitterroot mountain range one of the 30 most remote places on the planet. Paul Bowles once said of the Sahara “Once you’ve fallen victim to this vast, luminous country, you will go back, whatever the cost, for the Absolute has no price.” Idaho hasn’t been quite so romanticized but it’s isolation and beauty nag at me to return.