MacKay to Arco, Idaho. Sunday, June 9, 2024.
Easy day today, after yesterday’s suffer-fest. Downhill all the way, smooth shoulders, gentle tailwind, only 27 miles. A big storm and wind shift was brewing, but not until 10 AM, so I left early. Took advantage of the time zone difference to call Brian, Jane, and sister Anne; their conversations sustained me for the entire ride, and were easy since there was no traffic or wind noise. Would that every day could be like this!
Arco (no relation to the oil company) is known as the Atomic City.
It’s located in a stretch of desert so vast and self-contained that it was a safe place to conduct nuclear experiments, and the world‘s first nuclear reactor, EBR-1, was just a few miles from here. Borah is part of the Lost River Range, the river so-named because it flows nowhere, just seeps into an aquifer. This also reduces risk from nuclear contamination. Its population less than 1000, but it has a lot going on.
Incongruously rising from the desert is the sail of the USS Hawkbill, a nuclear powered submarine that was captained by a local resident; when it was decommissioned he arranged to have the sail transferred here.
Known as the Devil Ship because of its hull number, 666, it is a centerpiece of the Idaho Science Center, a cute collection of buildings. The docent was an engaging submarine veteran named Harvey, a cornucopia of information about the area.
One of the photos on the wall was familiar. Glenn T Seaborg, who won the Nobel prize for discovering (synthesizing actually) plutonium, later discovered many other trans-uranium elements, including Americium, Californium, and Berkelium. An element is named in his honor, Seaborgium. He is BFF Eric Seaborg’s father, and I knew him. An outdoor enthusiast, he took me on many hikes, and showed me his Nobel prize. Solid gold, it weighed a ton. In the 60s, he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and is shown with LBJ decommissioning the EBR-1 plant.
Behind the science center is Number Hill, where every graduating high school class since 1920 has painted their graduating year. This part of the west is big on defacing local mountains, I guess.
The storm arrived as predicted, but I was snug in my cheap motel, catching up on naps, planning the route, blogging, and watching the Celtics beat Dallas in the NBA finals. Can’t get much better than this.
Distance 27 miles, 1,553 total. Time 2 hours with stops. Elevation gain 26 feet (whee!)
©️ 2024 Scott Luria
The Ends of the Earth 