On Adventure helps me to share the adventures of exploring. Hoping that some of these entries encourage someone to explore, near or far to you.

Welcome to “The Secret City”: Oak Ridge, TN. Oak Ridge was home to the creation of the atom bomb in World War II. There’s a LOT of history here.

There’s a lot of history BEFORE The Manhattan Project began as well. While my planning wasn’t done well (I can absolutely admit my faults), I still had the opportunity to see a smidge of the history of this area of Appalachia.

First of all…know that you’re IN the mountains here. It’s beautiful. Period. Today, the temperature was in the 40s and it was overcast and even raining…and it was STILL beautiful here!

The National Historical Park here is a set of sites that either offer information and/or knowledge as to how things once were in the “Secret City”. So far today I’ve visited The Oak Ridge Children’s Museum (which is called the “children’s museum” because along with offering child-aged exhibits and activities – and a host of information for adults – it’s creation was actually pioneered by a Girl Scout Troop…actual children), which also hosts the NP (National Park) visitor center…The American Museum of Science and Energy (which is linked with the Smithsonian system)…and the K-25 Plant overlook.

Am I going to visit more tomorrow? Yes. There’s a few sites I’d like to locate. But I’m also going to Knoxville (45 minutes)…so we’ll have to see how well my day actually works out. It’s supposed to rain again…

I’m not gonna lie: Information overload today. There’s so very much cool stuff to learn about things they did here that are declassified for public knowledge. There’s a lot of very very basics that I knew. VERY basic. So, yes. Totally worth the admission costs to the museums to learn.

The museums themselves were multi-function learning. What does that mean? It means they have REALLY taken into account many of the ways that humans learn; it’s not all reading. It’s not all “look but don’t touch”. The AMSE was a LOT of hands-on things! (Very impressed, Smithsonian!).

While I’m in process of making notes for my next adventure (you know, to do it better and make things easier on myself), I’m happy with this adventure as well.

More tomorrow!