August 25, 2007

August 25, 2007

We are enjoying the warm weather in a nice resort-style RV park so we decide to hang out here for another day. Midmorning we unhitch the bikes and ride them into Richland, WA along a bike trail that follows the Columbia River. It is nice but longer than we expected.

In the town center we stop at the Columbia River Exposition, History, Science and Technology Museum. We were told that the nearby DOE's Hanford site visitor center exhibits had been moved here after 9-11. With such a mouthful name I was expecting a pretty significant museum, instead it is a very tiny structure. After entering we join up with a tour that just started. The docent leading the tour is outstanding and the exhibits though few are quite nice. Most are about the Hanford contribution to the Manhattan Project of WWII. While Los Alamos was the brain center, Hanford was one of the two primary manufacturing sites. Here in one of the largest construction projects on earth was built almost overnight a top-secret nuclear factory that converted Uranium into Plutonium and then purified it to weapons-grade. Because of high radiation risk most operations were done remotely. Aimee and I practice handling objects with one of the robotic arms and use a Geiger counter to check radiation. We then watch a couple of their movies.

After spending an amazing amount of time in such a small museum, we take a leisurely bike ride back to the RV. Leisurely, until I find I have a leak in my front tire. Not wanting to walk, I alternately peddle furiously for three minutes and then pump air into the tire. After an hour of this we make it back but I am seriously overheating. Fortunately the refrigerator is working great and the beer is cold.