Fulltime RV couple traveling the United States in our 2018 Tommy Bahama 27FBQ Airstream!
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Pulling out of the Craters of the Moon this morning we headed east on US-26 and the first town we came to was Arco, ID (pop. 879).
Arco was the first community in the world ever to be lit by electricity generated solely by nuclear power. This occurred for about an hour on July 17, 1955.
The nuclear power plant outside of Arco made further history on January 3, 1961, when the reactor was destroyed through an operator maintenance error, with the ensuing steam explosion causing the deaths of all three personnel present. It was the world's first and the United States' only fatal reactor accident.
Arco's High School started a tradition back in 1920 and it continues to today. Every year the graduating class paints their number up in the mountain that looms over the town. We had to look this one up after we took the photo.
About 60-miles southeast of Arco is the town of Blackfoot, ID (pop. 11,907). Blackfoot is where several of the railroads all crossed paths on their way to different parts of the country. It was the perfect place for Idaho to set up shipping of all their potatoes to the rest of the United States.
It is also where today you'll find the Official Idaho Potato Museum. We just had to stop in and check it out!
That's not just a flat sign, it's three dimensional.
Inside were many historical artifacts all about the history of the potato.
Here we saw many of the early tools used to harvest the potatoes.
Yes they even make vodka using potatoes.
Here are some of the more modern tools used in harvesting potatoes.
This machine is used to sort and grade the potatoes.
Now that's a Big Potato! This one's a bronze replica though.
That's a pretty large potato masher collection. It's twice as high as what can be seen in this photo.
The best part for me was at the end where they have a small cafe with only one entree on the menu. Yes you can even get your potato à la mode.
Tricia and I both ordered a Potato Bar. That's one large russet potato with as many of the eight toppings as you want. I also had to try their Potato Soup of course. If you like potatoes this is the place to come for lunch, we saw several people taking food out the door, presumably back to work.
After lunch we were back on the road to travel the last 50-miles of today's route. It wasn't long before we were leaving Interstate 15 behind and heading straight for the hills.
The GPS says the campground is just 1½-mile straight ahead.
