amberwavestour: Gator Nation, Indeed

Our long drive from Idaho to Montana turned out to be anything but boring. We knew we had a 5 1/2 hour drive through what promised to be some beautiful scenery, but we had no idea we would wind up with two fascinating unplanned stops along the way.

I took the first leg of the journey, so my usual investigating and narrating duties were turned over to Maddie. As we began passing a very different looking terrain, we got to work looking for clues Maddie could plug into the phone. How people knew anything about their surroundings in the days before the Internet confounds me. By the time we arrived a pull off spot with a couple of informative markers, Maddie had already piqued our curiosity with the tale of how the area earned its name - Craters of the Moon - when "the whites," arriving after the natives who had treated the area with respect and trepidation, determined it looked like the moon they had, of course, never witnessed up close. The name stuck and helped the campaign to get the area the protection it deserved.

Walking on the lava rocks and reading about how this area served as a safe passage for early pioneers was both fun and informative, but one of my favorite moments came as we were about to leave. We had been the only people there. Just as we were about to get into our car, another car pulled up right behind us. As Daniel began opening his car door, the woman from the other car spotted his Gator shirt. She and the man with her (husband, we think?) were both Bull Gators, as were the man's adult children. After we talked UF for a bit, we headed on our way, marveling at what a small world it is. They were headed to Grand Teton; we were headed to Montana. And here we all were, the only people at this odd little spot at this moment.

As unexpected and delightful as our first stop was, when Maddie began reading about the next cute little town we drove through, we became even more intrigued. First we were just curious about the numbers written on the hill in front of us.

We learned that this was referred to as Number Hill or Graduation Mountain, where each graduating senior class would climb up and leave their mark. Soon we became far more intrigued by the town of Arco itself, which we learned was the home of the first nuclear power plant in the world.

A few minutes later, I passed the unassuming entrance to the long winding road to the plant/museum, which is now open for tours in the summer. Maddie, especially, was beyond entranced, so I whipped back around and we headed to investigate.

The Idaho National Laboratory still operates today, and much of the land around it is not open to the public. It all feels a bit Stranger Things, which the INL is happy to embrace. They actually have a television inside where they compare their reality with the fiction of the show's universe. It is fully operated today by nuclear power, which led Dana to wonder whether the fossil fuel industry exercised some influence to slow the adoption of nuclear power.

We were finally off to Idaho Falls for a quick lunch and a final stop in this state we have come to love over just a few days. The only hiccup was that my camera acted up and all my photos of the falls were lost. I'll get a few from the kids to add later, but for now I'll include these two I took with my iPhone just outside our lunch spot.

Maddie took the wheel for our drive into Montana. It seemed only fitting on the day that the women's soccer team won its title (we were able to watch a little bit of it over breakfast at Perry's, which was not the best breakfast spot in Ketchum, but did have good final potatoes :) that the women did the driving.

The drive was beautiful, passing mountains, rivers, trees. We passed the West Yellowstone entrance and had that gorgeous park out our window for a good bit of the drive.

As we entered our lakeside condo for the week, it was just lightly raining. Maddie had navigated the slick curves like a pro. We ended our night with food shopping in Big Sky and dinner at Horn and Cantle at the Lone Mountain Ranch. What a spectacular place. We sat by the fire, had a waiter who looked exactly like Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born, ate delicious food, listened to some great live music, and witnessed a double rainbow that was a visual representation of how we were feeling. As we went to the patio to take a photo, a couple witnessed Daniel's shirt and greeted him warmly as fellow Gators.