My husband and I recently went to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Gallery in Traer, Iowa. Apparently there is a bigger salt and pepper shaker museum in Tennessee, but this one was impressive with 16,000 sets of salt and pepper shakers collected by Ruth Rasmussen. Now, salt and pepper shakers are more functional than decorative, as shown in the first set of shakers below that were in the kitchen of a hotel room. Salt and pepper shakers of the past were collectable, usable art forms.
I’ve spent way too much time researching whether spiral staircases go clockwise or counterclockwise (from the bottom up). Google AI tells me that most winding staircases travel clockwise from the bottom up. Other sources say as much as 75% go counterclockwise. Apparently stairways in towers always go clockwise and there are many theories as to why that is. WHY was I researching this topic, you might ask. Well, I was in the small town of Traer, Iowa and their famous landmark is a winding staircase on Main Street that used to go up to the second floor of the town newspaper building. The Traer staircase goes clockwise from the bottom up. At the street level, it seemed like it went the wrong direction and I realize that’s because the handrail is on the left side and I am right-handed. However, I then realized that coming down the staircase, the handle would be on the correct side for me. So, I really can’t answer the question about the most common direction of a winding staircase, but from now on when I see a spiral staircase I will take note of the direction for my own little personal research study.
I was mowing my yard when I ran across this unusual mushroom. It appears to be a Scleroderma mushroom also know as “earthballs” or “pigskin poison puffballs.” I found similar pictures on the internet and in a book on mushrooms, but not an exact match. I have eaten puffball mushrooms that my father-in-law cooked. I now realize that the type I ate was called a “Giant Puffball.” Many mushrooms are called puffballs because when they mature and dry out, they burst open and release spores (reminds me of Jiffy Pop popcorn). One clue as to whether a “puffball” is edible or not is the color of the inside. It must be white, not even the tiniest bit yellow and certainly not brown or black. As you can see with the mushroom I found, the inside is yellowed.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
I went to the original Star Wars movie today. So fun.
