LITTLE AMERICA, WYOMING, THE FIRST BUC-EE’S

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My husband and I were travelling across Wyoming on our way back from Oregon. Wyoming is very sparsely populated without a lot of stopping places. It was getting late in the day and we finally landed in Cheyenne, WY at a hotel called Little America. As I was going through the front doors to check-in, I saw this:

 

The sign at the penguin’s feet says:

“This Emperor Penguin is one of two presented to Little America in the 1930s by Captain Lystadt, a member of Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the South Pole. The other penguin resides at the original Little America in Western Wyoming. It was intended that they should arrive in this country alive but the climate change was too severe and the penguins died en route. This Emperor Penguin stands over three feet tall and weighs 140 pounds.”

What was this all about? I had to do some research.

On the opposite side of Wyoming from our hotel, Little America truck stop was built by Stephen Mack Covey and his brother in the early 1930s. The Covey brothers grew up on a sheep farm in that area. Apparently, Steven was stranded in a blizzard with his sheep one night and that was the inspiration for him later build the truck stop “oasis” on that spot.

“When I saw Admiral [Richard] Byrd’s picture of [his base camp] ‘Little America’ in Antarctic[a] and his isolation so many miles from his base of supplies it reminded me of my experience in that Nor’Easter. The thought came back to me to fulfill that promise, to erect a monument and haven of refuge on the spot of my harrowing experience. The name, of course, was a natural, ‘LITTLE AMERICA. ’”

The above quote is taken from an article on Little America from American Heritage Magazine:

https://www.americanheritage.com/queen-highways

 

Here is a photo of Richard Byrd’s Little America on the South Pole. His exploration team had several of these bases scattered across the South Pole.

Here is a roadside sign advertising Little America:

Here is a postcard I got on eBay showing the first Little America which opened near Granger, WY in 1934:

This Little America burned down in 1948. It was rebuilt on the same site, bigger and better. It increased from two gas pumps to 55. The closest town to Little America is Granger WY (population 97). The Little America complex became so big that it is now it’s own town with its own zip code.

In 1968, Little America was bought by Robert Earl Holding. He expanded the enterprise into a hotel chain (the hotel I stayed in above). Harding also owned Sinclair Oil (gas stations with the green dinosaur in front) and 2 ski resorts.

 

Here’s a Facebook page for the current Little America “oasis.”

https://www.facebook.com/littleamericawyoming/

 

GEEK IDAHO 3

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Further down Hwy 26 from EBR1 (the world’s first working nuclear reactor) is Atomic City, Idaho a ghost town on the edge of the Idaho National Laboratory.

 

The small town had a population of 140 in 1960 and then decreased to 20 and after THE WORLD’S FIRST DEADLY NUCLEAR ACCIDENT.

WHAAT?!

Atomic City (previously named Midway) sits on the edge of the Idaho National Laboratory land. In the 1950s when EBR1 was operational, the military was trying to develop a portable nuclear reactor to provide a mobile power source to remote areas. SL-1 was built five miles from Atomic City and became operational in 1958.

 

SR1 nuclear reactor

On 1/3/61, SL-1 exploded when the core overheated, killing the three soldiers who were operating the reactor. The bodies of the three men were so radioactive they had to be buried in lead coffins.

 

GEEK IDAHO 2

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As we travelled down Highway 26 after leaving Craters of the Moon National Monument, we drove through a small town with a population of 900. We passed this sign on a building:

WHAAAT?!

It turns out the first working nuclear reactors were part of a large nuclear research facility in the desert of southeastern Idaho, so we went further down Hwy 26 where we found:

THE WORLD’S FIRST WORKING NUCLEAR REACTOR

EBR1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor) was constructed following WWII. On December 20, 1951, it lit four 200-watt light bulbs which is not very impressive but it was the first time nuclear energy was harnessed to make electricity. After the trial with the four light bulbs, they were able to provide all the electricity for the facility. EBR1 was in use 12 years.

There are self-guided tours of EBR1 every summer. Here is a short YouTube video about EBR1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPxAxBul1BI

The Idaho National Laboratory covers 890 acres, employs 5,000 people and has built 52 nuclear reactors. One of the early reactors, BORAX III, is the reactor that provided electricity to Arco, Idaho (above).

THE FIRST NUCLEAR REACTOR ACCIDENT

WHAAAT?!

On 11/29/55 while doing tests on coolant flow in EBRI, there was a nuclear accident with a partial core meltdown. The reactor was shut down right away. No one was injured, but about 50% of the core melted and had to be removed. They took the core to a cave to contain the radioactivity. In the cave they disassembled the core to study it. The core was repaired and reloaded with plutonium and remained in operation until 1963.

 

One of the scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory made a LEGO model of EBR1. It didn’t get enough votes to be made into a LEGO kit but here is an interesting blog post about the model:

https://neutronbytes.com/2019/05/11/ebr-i-lives-again-in-lego/

Stay tuned for Geek Idaho 3.

GEEK IDAHO 1

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My husband and I were driving from Oregon to Iowa and stumbled on some (nerdy, scientific) interesting things. A sign on Hwy 26 led us to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve which is 750,000 acres of lava rocks (about 1/3 the size of Yellowstone National Park):

 

 

 

There is no single large volcano that made Craters of the Moon like Mount Vesuvius in Italy (the volcano that destroyed the city of Pompeii) or Mount St. Helens in Washington state (erupted in 1980). Instead, this lava flowed from cracks in the earth called “fissure eruptions” with multiple small craters formed by lava explosions. Craters of the Moon has been dormant for the past 2000 years. The area was once part of the ancestral homeland of the Shoshone-Bannock people. (Information gathered from the National Park Service website)

Apollo 14 astronauts visited in 1969 before going to the moon to study geology(rocks). Craters of the Moon is actually more similar to Mars than the moon. NASA has brought astronauts more recently to learn about Mars terrain.

http://idahoptv.org/shows/idahoexperience/episodes/whenApolloCameToIdaho/

Stay tuned for Geek Idaho 2 to see what we discovered 20 miles after Craters of the Moon.

WHAT IS AN OOTHECA?

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I found this strange cocoon attached to a bush in my yard. I thought that would kill the bush so I removed the twig and brought it into the house to study it. It turned out that it was the egg sac of a praying mantis called an “ootheca.” Rather than hatch the babies in my house, I attached it back to the bush with a zip tie.

The mother mantis lays her eggs in the fall before the first freeze. She produces proteins that make a foam around the eggs and then harden into the protective ootheca. Each ootheca contains about 50-200 eggs. The mother dies after making the egg sac. Over the winter, the eggs develop into babies.

In the spring, when the temperature is around 70-80 degrees and humidity less than 50% for about two weeks, the babies hatch inside the ootheca.  Then they chew through the wall to get outside and eat small insects like aphids and fruit flies. If they don’t get out of the ootheca fast enough to eat, the bigger babies may eat the smaller ones. The babies are about 4mm (1/8 inch) long.

https://praying-mantis.org/what-do-baby-praying-mantis-eat/  This link shows someone feeding a fly to a baby mantis.

Praying mantis are carnivores. The adults eat grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, flies, bees, wasps, butterflies, gnats, and occasionally a small hummingbird or a small snake.

Another type of insect that makes and ootheca to protect the eggs is a cockroach.

 

 

 

 

Helen Keller’s Handwriting

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I was recently walking through an outdoor shopping area in downtown St. Augustine, Florida and discovered the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum. The “museum” was a little alcove sandwiched between two stores, hardly big enough to call a room. It displayed letters from famous people protected by thick glass. One letter immediately caught my eye because the penmanship was so perfect and distinct. And that letter was written by Helen Keller. So, how is it that a blind person had neater handwriting than me?

 

Helen Keller learned handwriting at the Perkin’s School for the Blind in Watertown, MA, a suburb of Boston. She later learned braille and used a braille typewriter to write letters. To read and write letters rather than braille, the school used Tactile Text which are letters embossed in paper.  This post shows an example of a tactile book:

https://www.perkins.org/tactile-books/#:~:text=Samuel%20Gridley%20Howe%2C%20director%20of,and%20at%20the%20Pennsylvania%20Institute.

Here is an example of tactile letters combined with braille:

https://www.perkins.org/what-did-helen-keller-use-to-read-and-write/

Here is a YouTube video showing devices that blind people use to keep their writing in a straight line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrk5fSUJA9o

Here is another YouTube video where a historian talks about Helen Keller learning to write:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIHFgYRKaCE

LUIS BETANZOS, MEXICAN ARTIST

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My mother-in-law gave us these two paintings (below) that had belonged to her mother. The paintings were signed “Betanzos.”  I did some research to find out about the artist.

Luis Betanzos (Herrara), 1907-1978, is a folk artist from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. A folk artist is a self-taught artist without formal art training and Luis started painting when he was three years old. His father was a teacher and Luis became a grade school teacher. Children were a common subject of his paintings. He also taught classes about his painting techniques at the Academy of San Carlos.

He mostly did a type of painting called “gouache” (pronounced gwash). Gouache is defined by Google dictionary as “a method of painting using opaque pigments ground in water and thickened with a gluelike substance.” If you have an interest in gouache painting compared to watercolor painting, here is a good YouTube video showing the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2CZNPZLRPg

One of Betanzos primary students, Alfredo Guati Rojo, became a famous Mexican painter who worked with watercolors. His paintings are in the National Museum of Watercolors in Mexico City.

Luis Betanzos’ grandson has a collection of many of his grandfather’s paintings which he displays in a house in Cuernavaca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQDYH_zVtEw  (This video is in Spanish)

Betanzos’ grandson has been collecting money through a foundation to build a small museum to house his grandfather’s art, and also to make a documentary and a book about his grandfather’s life.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHK1_ZAJRiE  (This video is in English)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Turkey Day!

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Next week is Thanksgiving. Today, two wild turkeys were strutting across my front yard. One was shy and did not want to be photographed, but the other was a poser.

Wild Turkey