Originally posted from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

The campground bathrooms were of such a low quality in Yellowstone that we did not spend more than one night there, choosing to leave the park and sleep at Rexburg, Idaho. We were glad we did so, since we met some fine folks from Georgia who were on a road trip of their own. Got chatting with them, and when we were discussing what we’d seen in Georgia, we managed to convince Rachel to read us a quote from the Mudboggin we’d been to. If you forget (and how could you?!?), surf on over to one of our previous tales here and check out some odd parental discipline.

After the natural wonders of Yellowstone, we cruised over to the first nuclear reactor in the USA to create electricity. Got a guided tour of the facility (all free) and learned a reasonable bit about nuclear energy. They were a little lax in telling us about the fun and games that nuclear waste brings to the environment, but overall quite educational.

From there, we went to the Craters Of The Moon which is a large lava field. Not quite what we expected, since there was more vegetation than we thought there would be. I guess we figured that it was just miles of lava without break, but it turned out that the people of 1924 did not know what the moon really looked like, and we had not taken that into consideration.

We spent today hiking up Mineral Ridge overlooking the Coeur d’Alene lake and learning about US history from Carrie (Bonita and Ron’s youngest)…

Apparently, Christopher Columbus sailed to the USA, drove on the I-90 to Idaho, then climbed a tree in his boat. The tree fell over, and they named it the Columbus Tree. He died in the forest and they buried him at the top of the hill. After he died, he sailed back home to India where he died. Again.

A very interesting spin on the history of the US and one we’re not likely to forget in a hurry since we were laughing so hard.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001