Wyoming and Idaho

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We are back from a quick vacation. I managed to score three (actually several more) bucket list items in 4 days. 1.) Long Snowmobile Trip. 2.) Yellowstone Park and 3.) Wyoming. I reached my 50th State --Wyoming! And we took a 90 mile snowmobile trip in Yellowstone National Park. We went to the "Craters of the Moon--National Monument and Preserve" in Idaho and also stopped at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where I got to see (with my own eyes) the very cool nuclear powered twin turbojet engine. It was a successful experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. https://whatisnuclear.com/safety-minutes/htre-3-meltdown.html Of course, I had my Radiacode scintillation detector with me and yes, the apparatus is "Hot". The screenshot of the readings from my three walk-arounds the artifact. I swear you could smell the radiation. There was a very un-natural burnt smell something reminiscent of burned bakelite. Although, I am quite certain the emitted radition was not the source...

It was kind of a gray day for being out in the field. They all can't be brilliant. We went up to Cape Bird which is a very large penguin rookery. I didn't get the time I hoped with the penguins since we were having problems with the equipment, but I still got some really nice shots. I took 219 photos and movies today. The penguins are definately fun to watch. They walk around and they look like they have some place to go and others follow only to all turn around and decide there wasn't anything to see there after all.

I am told the population is approximately 40,000 birds this year. That's a lot of guano no matter what the breed of bird.

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