Steve - what a wonderful trip report and experience. Thank-you for taking the time to put it down in words on this post. I actually saw it yesterday, but saved it for reading Sunday morning with a stout coffee! The wife and I would have loved to do exactly the same.
I also enjoyed your description of the "Nuclear Tour" and hate to point this out now, but you missed a cool spot that you could have put on your way: Atomic City Idaho, and Arco Idaho, both early legacies of nuclear power in the US (world for that matter). Read about them here:
Arco and Atomic City 1Arco and Atomic City 2Other cool places for Atomic History are White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico (Trinity Site), and the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. I've been to the above, plus ground zero in Hiroshima, Japan.
Again, what a great adventure and thanks for sharing!
