Day 45: The Nucleus of Nuclear

We awoke (well, Nick awoke) just 100 feet from the government’s nuclear playgrounds, and upon a quick self examination with no noticeable new lumps I took off into the dried up riverbed next to the rest stop. The river (known as the Lost River because all the waters have been gobbled up for agriculture ) was partially fenced off, and after reading that I could be jailed up to 3 years and fined $100,000 for treading upon the sacred atomic grounds, I jumped in…

(The Lost River bed)

The river was rather pathetic, the only trees within twenty miles were barely hanging on, and it seriously looked like something trying to rebound from a nuclear disaster. My time was short however, as a raptor kept dive bombing me and drove it away from its nesting tree.

(Defensive bird in it's dead tree)

Back at the rest stop I stomped around the concrete so as to wake the sleeping Luke and Sam so we could get to Arco to start blogging, they tiredly ignored the effort and arose perturbed an hour later. Meanwhile, I treked over to the information sign and learned that we were situated amidst the densest accumulation of nuclear reacters in the world. How fun!

(Rest stop campspot)

We made it to Arco (the first city in the world to be powered by nuclear) by 12pm and headed straight into the heavily advertized Pickle's Place for some mediocre burgers and milkshakes. Luck struck well in the dilled cucumber, as seated next to us was the world’s 2^nd most prestigious active dogsledder and his wife. They concernedly advised that we not continue on our hellacious path throughout the barren wasteland known as the Snake River Plain, but instead, turn into the montaine-riparian Eden to the north.

(Pickle's Place, the atomic burger left a weak impression)

By 1pm the library found us strutting in its doors. A daycare with books and computers would be a more apt description than "library", as the librarian was tending her 2 year old and numerous elementary schoolers who had nothing better to do than to tend their webkinz. The computers had an absurd usage policy: 30 minutes free, $5.00 for a full hour, one hour limit per day…HAHAHA so much for getting any blogging done. I managed to upload pictures with the laptop until 5pm and then stumbled over to the Arco High School’s front yard, where I collapsed and shared some smoked oysters, canned chilli and rerfried beans with 'ole Sammo and Lukester. A heated discussion about the blog situation ensued, we were 15 days behind and getting behind’er fast. What to do!?!? Well, we decided to get better at being more diligent. Then we threw our tarp out under a tree in the city park and drifted off to dreamland.