Craters of the Moon

On our last day in Idaho we went to see the museum about EBR-1, the first nuclear power plant, that is out where Jake works.  It was interesting to see how much we have learned about nuclear power in 60 years since this first attempt.  Ashton and Abbie weren't very impressed with the museum itself (can you blame them) but Ashton did have a blast playing with these robotic arms that they used to work on things behind these thick walls so they weren't exposed to the radiation.  He was really good at using the robotic hand to pick up marbles and put them in a container then dumping out that container to do it all over again.  He would have stayed and played all day he said.  I didn't take any pictures even though I had my camera, I don't know what I was thinking.  Jake had a good time explaining things to Lexie and I think she really enjoyed learning more about some of the stuff that Jake does at his job, well sort of anyway.  He is now working on the dismantling of EBR-2, the next nuclear power plant they build and used out there.  We did get to see, from a distance, where Jake actually works now.

Craters of the Moon

 After the museum we went to Craters of the Moon.  I can't say we really had a good time there, but I think we might go back and give it another try on a day when the weather cooperates better and the park isn't under construction.  We couldn't see about half the park because the roads were all under construction and it was really windy and raining so nobody really wanted to get out of the car.  But we did see a little.

This is inside a splatter cone, it was kinda cool.  Then we went to this (I can't remember what it was called)

and the kids were amazed that inside this hole......

was snow still left over from last winter....

see it down there in the corner.  

There were cool lava formations there and somewhere there are caves that you can go in, but we never found them because we were to cold to get out of the car.