北美生活
Live life to the fullest
正文
After two days at Grand Teton, we drove back to Idaho Falls. With half a day left to spend, we decided to check out Craters of the Moon National Monument, located 75 miles west of Idaho Falls. It is a dormant volcanic area with miles of lava flows which occurred thousands of years ago. There are several hiking trails and a scenic 7 miles loop drive in the park. The landscape was really weird, in some way it reminded me of Volcano National Park in Hawaii.
1. Craters of the Moon National Monument.
On the way to Craters of the Moon, we happened to drive by Arco, Idaho and EBR-I nearby. Out of curiosity, we went inside EBR-I, and was surprised at what we found. It turned out EBR-I stands for "The Experimental Breeder Reactor-I". It was the first nuclear reactor in the world to produce useable quantities of electric power and achieved many other firsts during its twelve years of operation. The reactor was decommissioned in 1964, and the site has been open to the public since 1976. Everything inside looked so ancient, it's hard to believe that within such a humble building, so many historic moments had happened. After a quick look around we drove off. EBR-I stood behind alone in the middle of nowhere. It looked so small and insignificant from the road, who would know that it had contributed so much for millions of people's life.
2. Arco, Idaho, first city in the world to be lit by atomic power. I wonder if the residents knew what's happening back then and how did they feel about it?
3. Recorded on a wall of the EBR-I building.
We were going home the next morning. There was only one flight per day for Northwest Airline going from Idaho Falls to Minneapolis, so we sure didn't want to miss it. We arrived at the airport early, waited, checked in, and seated. Everything seemed fine until the flight attendant came on board and told us that the plane was overweight, 11 people had to get off. I couldn't tell you how shocked we all were. The plane could seat a total of 40 some people, how could we be so overweight that 25% of the people had to get off? And what could we do if we did get off, wait another day for the next flight? Some people started to walk off the plane checking their options, but no way could we have 11 volunteers. Just when we were all lost, didn't know what's gonna happen next, the flight attendant came back. He said the computer made a mistake, they recalculated, instead of needing 11 volunteers, they only need 4 this time. I was not sure I felt better or worse after hearing that. How could they make a mistake like that? Which result should I trust? The next ten minutes was not easy for me. The gate closed, the plane taxied to the runway, and finally off we went into the blue sky ......
(The End)
1. Craters of the Moon National Monument.
On the way to Craters of the Moon, we happened to drive by Arco, Idaho and EBR-I nearby. Out of curiosity, we went inside EBR-I, and was surprised at what we found. It turned out EBR-I stands for "The Experimental Breeder Reactor-I". It was the first nuclear reactor in the world to produce useable quantities of electric power and achieved many other firsts during its twelve years of operation. The reactor was decommissioned in 1964, and the site has been open to the public since 1976. Everything inside looked so ancient, it's hard to believe that within such a humble building, so many historic moments had happened. After a quick look around we drove off. EBR-I stood behind alone in the middle of nowhere. It looked so small and insignificant from the road, who would know that it had contributed so much for millions of people's life.
2. Arco, Idaho, first city in the world to be lit by atomic power. I wonder if the residents knew what's happening back then and how did they feel about it?
3. Recorded on a wall of the EBR-I building.
We were going home the next morning. There was only one flight per day for Northwest Airline going from Idaho Falls to Minneapolis, so we sure didn't want to miss it. We arrived at the airport early, waited, checked in, and seated. Everything seemed fine until the flight attendant came on board and told us that the plane was overweight, 11 people had to get off. I couldn't tell you how shocked we all were. The plane could seat a total of 40 some people, how could we be so overweight that 25% of the people had to get off? And what could we do if we did get off, wait another day for the next flight? Some people started to walk off the plane checking their options, but no way could we have 11 volunteers. Just when we were all lost, didn't know what's gonna happen next, the flight attendant came back. He said the computer made a mistake, they recalculated, instead of needing 11 volunteers, they only need 4 this time. I was not sure I felt better or worse after hearing that. How could they make a mistake like that? Which result should I trust? The next ten minutes was not easy for me. The gate closed, the plane taxied to the runway, and finally off we went into the blue sky ......
(The End)
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Sic
2007-07-14 16:11:50
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悄悄話
Very nice writing! Fun to read, even in English. =)
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