Saturday, May 7, 2011

Museum of Science and Energy

 Day 2 - We took a quick drive from VA into Oak Ridge, TN. Along the way, I learned the valuable lesson that a CD player works best when the CD is inserted into the player, not the adjoining storage compartment.  First minor crisis solved.


Oak Ridge is a town built by the US government for the express purpose of figuring out how  to refine uranium for the Manhattan Project.  Never mind that other people happened to be living on that land at the time.  So what do you get after a town is built solely to support nuclear research?  Unfortunately, no 3-eyed fish or glowing inhabitants.  However, much like the Springfield Isotopes, most of the town is covered in atomic symbols.


Amanda contributed to the war effort with a good Rosie the Riveter interpretation...


... while I decided to get more down and dirty.


The rest of the museum was full of a lot of science-museumy normal stuff, but, having had our fill of playing with cool sciency stuff, we snuck into the restricted area.


What happened in there, well, I'm not at liberty to divulge that information, but sufficed to say, after all that hard work and time passed, we decided to try a new brand of fast food for us, Krystal.


What was the most dangerous part of the day - the risk of radiation, the CIA cover up, or the artery clogging culinary investigation?  I think you know what the answer to that question is:  Classified.

~Mary

The Museum of Atomic Energy was fun.  We read displays, took some funny pictures.



At one point, though, I realized we must have separated to look at different stuff.  Having seen everything of interest to me, I went to try and find her so we could hit up our next destination.  Weirdly, I couldn't find her anywhere.  I asked around to see if anyone'd seen her, but they were no help, which was odd, because I already knew we were being watched (People in Tennessee dress really strangely, don't they?).






Little did I know, Mary already knew exactly where I was.  



I was starting to get annoyed, when I finally spotted her...which made me start to get uncomfortable.


I asked her what she was doing in a bizarre, blue-lit cave inside a family-friendly science museum.  She said something vague about "testing the parameters," which I assumed was a Star Trek reference and laughed off, suggesting we move on.  She said okay, after I show you this one last interesting exhibit.  Fatefully, I said okay.

What happened after that, I'm not really sure.  I know there were computers.  It was some kind of control center, which was pretty cool.

But then....

 I and my doppleganger both turned to ask Mary what was going on, but....


I think I heard her yell something about the power of Merlin, but I can't be sure.  It's all hazy.  I don't know how much time I missed, but I do remember that when I was fully conscious again, I knew this trip was certainly not going according to my plans.

~Amanda

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