Day 55, the atomic city

I heard bizarre noises all night.

Just to give you a little insight into my campsite, it was roughly a mile down a dirt road to the south of the highway. I moved about a hundred yards off that road to camp in the sage brush. The Idaho National Laboratory border was a mile from my location, both north and west.

So it felt a bit like Stranger Things, isolated in the middle of the Idaho plains, surrounded by Department of Energy territory.

I heard all sorts of mechanical rattling and whirring noises all night. And these powerful electronic, pulsing sounds.

Regardless, I survived.

Not before long, I rode into the INL complex.

That sign in the distance, one of the many ominous signs in the area:

Just don't go anywhere off the road

The wind stayed mild for about two hours. Not absent, but not 20 miles per hour.

I'm usually glancing at the side of the road for anything interesting while riding. I saw a brand new package of bungee cords - which comes at a perfect time because mine are a bit sun-worn and loosing their elasticity.

Plus I got to test out my new kickstand rig:

You can see the pole in the middle with the red flag attached to it. Rusty, from Idaho Falls, fashioned the device from an old tent pole and affixed my "don't hit me" flag to it. And there is a bracket at the end I can attach to my frame to prop the bike up. It works perfectly!

I picked up some new bungees and headed towards ERB-1. The Experimental Breeder Reactor produced the first usable nuclear powered electricity.

The whole facility is a step back into the fifties.

I didn't plan on visiting, nor did I know about the place until today, but it is a fascinating museum.

Outside of the museum are two nuclear reactors. I didn't know until going inside, but they were a part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project. That means they were destined to go in airplanes...

The banner photo is of the reactor on the right

Suffices to say, they were too heavy for flight.

Inside the facility, I took a tour lead by Caitlin, which was great. She prefaced the tour saying her background was in biology (and one of the tour members was a nuclear scientist), but regardless, she did a great job!

The reactor is filled with some amazing signs (Cave Johnson & Portal 2, for anyone familiar...).

Or, a place for anything and anything in place

The dispenser was all out of tissues

All of the electricity something something something facility of Idaho National Laboratory is atomic power.

All of the original control rooms are still intact, filled with tactile switches and knobs.

I am so glad I stopped here, spending at least two hours walking around and learning a bunch from the tour.

I struggled for the next few hours against the Idaho wind into Arco.

There I met Scar, a really nice guy with a couple acres of land in town where he lets cyclists and other campers stay for free. Quite a noble cause. He has two awesome dogs, Stig & Ruby, which roamed around the property late into the evening.

I'll leave you with a public service announcement. Don't use NaK around water.

Joe