Road Trips in Idaho Need to Include More Cool Stops Like This

If your trip is only about the destination, then take a plane. Road trips are not just about where you are going, it’s about what you find along the way. Anyone with me on a road trip had better be ready for the world’s largest ball of twine, homes gouged out of a rock, and decommissioned nuclear reactors.

While traveling up to Idaho Falls, make a stop along the way to the birthplace of usable electricity generated from nuclear power.

Back in 1951, there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment, so some crazy kids in their garage thought up a nuclear power plant. The idea was to generate more energy - or breed - more power than what was consumed in a nuclear reaction. Okay, so it wasn’t crazy kids, but EBR-I did make enough energy to power four 200-watt lightbulbs on December 20th, 1951. It went on to generate enough to power its own facility and continued to be used for experiments until 1964.

Now that it is a decommissioned site turned museum, geeks can unite and gawk inside the place where the nuclear-powered era began. Visit EBR-1 near Arco (the first community to be lit by nuclear power) with self-guided, or in-person tours available from Memorial Day through Labor Day. If you are a true road-tripper, stop by Craters of the Moon along the way. Idaho, the birthplace of nuclear reactors and astronaut training grounds.

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Surely this is all a front, and during the zombie apocalypse, we will discover the plant is just sleeping. We will use EBR-I power to save citizens from around Idaho in the last bastion of civilization. Visit the site and decide for yourselves.