Idaho - Day 18 - back to Arco

Craters of the Moon/Arco KOA, Arco
Monday, 18 July 2022

today's route

You may remember when I was in Arco before, I wanted to take routes farther north before going on to Idaho Falls and Pocatello, but the state of my brakes scared me into playing it safe.  Now that I have functioning brakes again, I still wanted to get up into this area at least a little bit.  Although Google said Arco was just a 2-hour drive from American Falls, the map told me there weren't many towns beyond it, so I'd have trouble finding a campground.  I'd been fairly comfortable when I'd stayed in Arco before so decided to stop off there as a way-station and go north afterwards.

Near Pocatello I passed a huge factory labeled Simplot, which wasn't a name I knew.  I learned online that it's "an international agribusiness company" that's still privately owned and headquartered in Boise.  It provides a wide variety of agricultural services, ranging from supplying dehydrated potatoes and onions to the military in WWII to doing grass seed research and development now.

I stopped in Pocatello, pop. 54,255, again to try a different grocery store, and to go back to the dog park before we really got back on the road.  I saw some of the same people at the dog park as yesterday.  I guess you don't have to stay in Pocatello long to get to know people.

Then we turned north on US 91 again, running through Chubbuck, pop. 13,922, and heading back up to Blackfoot.  Chubbuck, by the way, seems to be pronounced with an "sh" sound instead of the "ch" it says.

I saw a crow being closely chased by 2 small birds; I guess he was trying to rob their nest.  This was actually the 2nd time I saw that around here - the first time was when I was staying in Arco.  The crows in this area are more aggressive (or hungrier) than those in other parts of the state?

Back in Blackfoot, pop. 11,899, I found a Sinclair station with gas at $4.94, by far the lowest in the whole area.  I wouldn't have expected that in a fairly small town like this one.  Until I got a little farther into town and found a Maverick station at $4.93.

I saw a shop window - and I wish I knew what was sold in the shop because it might explain the sign I saw painted on the glass: GOD GUNS & TRUMP.

We stopped at the park we'd visited here before - the one with the little lake going dry.  Dext got a walk and we all had some lunch.

Back on the road, litter cleanup in one area was sponsored by The Butterfly Haven, which I had to look up.  It seems to be a private business that claims to be Idaho's largest butterfly house.  They say they're dedicated to providing a safe environment for butterflies.  As many as I've been running into on the road, I'd say almost anywhere is safer for them than out by the roadways.

We started getting very strong crosswinds.  The speed limit was 70 mph and I could barely go 60 because the wind was blowing me around so much.  Even 55 was difficult at times.  In fact, there was a red flag warning in effect, and online forecasts predicted winds in the 20-30 mph range with gusts up to 35-45 mph.  It felt like more than that in my little metal box on the highway.

We passed the turn for Atomic City, so called because of it having those nuclear facilities nearby.  It's gained population recently, jumping from 29 residents in 2010 to 41 in 2020.  Some consider it a ghost town.

US Highway 26, today's route, crossed much of the same country as US-20, the road I took from Arco on the way to Pocatello.  That meant that today I got a look at the other side of those 2 mountains I'd seen before - one rounded and the other looking post-eruption with antennas all over it - Big Butte and one of the other buttes (East or Middle).  

I passed something called Radioactive Waste Management Complex, which I learned online was set up in 1952 to bury low-level radioactive waste generated by research programs.  For some years, much of the waste it buried came from Colorado, but in 1984 they began to limit the waste to that from Idaho itself.

I guess it was the thought of all that nuclear waste hanging around this area for decades that made me decide against drinking water from the Arco campground.  I'm assuming it came from underground water, and that just made me nervous enough to decide that I had enough to tide me over until I was out of the area.

When I got to Arco, pop. 992, the campground tried to give me a different space than the one they'd promised.  They said someone else had been assigned to that site.  I told them I remembered making the reservation quite clearly, and that the person I'd talked to had said I'd be in space #44, and they'd move me to space #41 if it opened up.  Instead they wanted to put me in #45.  It may not sound like a big deal, but when I'd been there before I was in #47, so I knew well that there were no trees after #44, and the day was already getting pretty hot.  I said I'd already spent enough time there without trees - so the guy gave it to me.  Made me glad I'd stood up for myself instead of meekly accepting the edict.

And it turned out that no one ended up coming in to #41 overnight so I don't know what their problem was.  But someone told me that some campgrounds in Montana have been having a real problem with people making reservations and then not showing up.  The campground has to turn away business in the meantime, only to discover they were getting stood up.  Well, I've learned well that different campgrounds have different policies, but KOA always gets the first night paid for in advance (for this very reason, probably) and many state campgrounds all over say they'll give away your reserved campsite if you haven't shown up by the morning after the first night - probably also for this reason.  Don't know why people can't just lift up the phone and call - I've done it.