Hood Park, Leavenworth, Manhattan Project B Reactor in Washington

We left Crescent Bar, Washington after a one night stay to meet up with our good friends, Linda & Randy who were camp hosting at Hood Park in Pasco, Washington for the summer.  Hood Park is a Corp of Engineer (COE) park where the Snake and Columbia Rivers meet.  I booked this campground way in advance and picked a site near the park camp hosts and got lucky to be right next to our friends.

Hood Park COE and Campground from across the Snake River

We got to play more Mexican Train with Linda and Randy

While we were visiting with Linda and Randy, we did some side trips.  One was to Palouse Falls.  

Rylee joined us for this day trip to the falls.

Looking downstream

Looking downstream

We walked on a trail that took us towards the side of the falls and to an area where we could see the water flowing before the falls.

The Palouse River on its way to the falls

Top of the falls right before in flows over

Looking back to the parking area

 

Palouse Falls is in the middle of NOWHERE!  Unfortunately we didn't check the gas gauge before we left Pasco and we were running dangerously low so we were asking people in the parking lot for directions to the closest diesel since we had no cell signal.  Someone told us a place to go and we managed to get diesel before we ran out. 

Phew, much needed diesel!

 

Linda and Randy were in this area for the summer to spend time with Randy's Uncle Bruce, and his wife, Diane, who had ALS.  We went to their house one night for dinner.  After dinner the guys played pool in the garage and the girls watched. 

 

 

 

We had a cool cloud formation visible from their backyard.

Side note, unfortunately Diane passed away before Christmas so we were lucky to have met her.  She was a neat lady and a big Seattle Mariners fan.  I accidentally ended up with one of her Rubbermaid containers so I think of her every time we use it.

  
The four of us went to Gesa Stadium in Pasco to catch an Everett AquaSox vs. Tri-City Dust Devils baseball game.  

 

The Tri-City Dust Devils are a Minor League Baseball team based in Pasco, Washington. The Dust Devils are members of the Northwest League and are affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels. Tri-City plays their home games at Gesa Stadium, which opened in 1995 and has a seating capacity of 3,654.

The Tri-Cities Dust Devils beat the Everett AquaSox by a score of 3-2.

Mascot, Dusty

There was a fireworks show after the game.

It was funny that going to two minor league baseball games and we saw the same team, the Everett AquaSox, twice.

The four of us took a road trip to Leavenworth, Washington and stayed at an AirBnB for a few nights.  

Leavenworth is a Bavarian-styled village in the Cascade Mountains, in central Washington State. Alpine-style buildings with restaurants serving German beer and food line Front Street. The Nutcracker Museum displays thousands of nutcrackers, some dating back centuries. On the Wenatchee River, Waterfront Park is a habitat for ospreys and eagles. The village is a gateway to nearby ski areas and wineries.

 

Note, the Leavenworth prison is not in Washington but in Kansas.

 

Here are some photos of the cute downtown area.

 

Leavenworth was officially incorporated on September 5, 1906. A small timber community, it became a regional office of the Great Northern Railway in the early 1900s. The railroad relocated to Wenatchee in 1925, greatly affecting Leavenworth's economy. The city's population declined well into the 1950s as the lumber mills closed and stores relocated.

The city looked to tourism and recreation as a major economy as early as 1929, when they opened a ski jump.

In 1962, the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed in partnership with the University of Washington to investigate strategies to revitalize the struggling logging town. The theme town idea was created by two Seattle businessmen, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers, who had bought a failing cafe on Highway 2 in 1960. Price was chair of the Project LIFE tourism subcommittee, and in 1965 the pair led a trip to a Danish-themed town, Solvang, California, to build support for the idea. The first building to be remodeled in the Bavarian style was the Chikamin Hotel, which owner LaVerne Peterson renamed the Edelweiss after the state flower of Bavaria.

We visited the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery.

The Fish Hatchery raises and releases spring Chinook salmon helping to mitigate for the impact of the Grand Coulee Dam on fish populations.

Baby salmon pools

These spring Chinook left our hatchery when they were 20 months old and swam to the ocean, 497 miles downstream.  They spend from 1 to 4 years in the sea before returning.  They arrive in May and June, but wait for August before they are ready to spawn. 

 

We happen to visit on a day as the hatchery staff and volunteers were separating the salmon. 

These guys had a fence that would move along the track to pen the salmon in so they could each be viewed and separated into three areas.  
1) Females ready to spawn
2) Males
3) Young salmon

One by one each fish was examined underneath to determine its category.

I earned a Junior Fish Biologist badge at this location.

 

We walked a trail in the area and enjoyed the scenery.

In the creek we could see some more fish.

 

After our walk we went back to watch the guys some more.  The pen was getting smaller as the process was further along.

The fish either went over the short fence in the foreground, into the square hole in the back or over the wall into the next pool.

We were fascinated by the process and there was a volunteer nearby that answered all our questions. 

Our AirBnB was within walking distance to the downtown which was convenient.  One day we went to a restaurant for German food.

 

On a hot lazy day, we did a river float.  We each got our own inner tube, life jacket, and frisbees to use as paddles.  

 

 

Al, Randy, Linda, and Nancy

Nancy and Linda

We were lucky to see a Bald Eagle

As we were nearing the end of our float, we came around a corner and whoa.......a brown bear was in the water along the shore!  Yikes!  

 

 
 

We paddled WAY WAY around him as best we could because our getting out spot was not far beyond him. 

This is how close we were to the bear!

 

Our getting out spot on the right.

Well that was not expected but so cool to see since he didn't attack us!

It was a fun and lazy day floating down the Wenatchee River and the Bald Eagle and bear sightings were just icing on top!

Before leaving the next day we took another walk to downtown to see it in the evening.

Nutcracker Museum

One day while Linda and Randy were "working" at the campground we took the a tour of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park - B Reactor.  We arrived at the visitor's center in town where we were shown a movie and then we got on a bus to ride to the site.  The bus ride was 25 miles and at one point the bus turn off the highway on an unmarked road and drove for a bit before the bus driver got out of the bus to unlock a gate to get the bus through.  We eventually arrived at the reactor building. 

The B Reactor was the world's first full scale nuclear reactor.

Once we arrived at the building we were allowed to roam around as we wanted on a self guided tour.

Almost since the beginning of time Hanford has been a harsh and arid landscape, plagued by hot summers and high spring winds.  For centuries its only inhabitants were Indians who made their winter camps along the banks of the Columbia River.  

Eventually the westward expansion brought settlers...ranchers, farmers and storekeepers.  

 

With the expansion of the railroads and the creation by Congress of the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, the population of the area grew.  Between 1905 and 1910, the towns of White Bluffs and Hanford were officially founded, creating a network of farms and small supply and grain shipment towns.  Along with the town of Richland, they had a combined population of nearly 1,500.

The valley remained peaceful and quiet until the fateful days of 1943 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers claimed the land in the name of a secret project known only as the Manhattan Engineering District.  Thirty days later the cities of Hanford and White Bluffs ceased to exist.  Richland survived, but only as a government town where Manhattan Project officials would live.   

 

The front face of the plutonium reactor

There was a docent who explained what we were viewing in this room with the rods.  I couldn't even begin to explain the process.  

 

If you are interested, here is a good article with more details:

https://crosscut.com/environment/2022/11/hanford-turns-its-nuclear-past-tourist-destination

 

A 3-D Model built to show the B Reactor Core.

The B Reactor was the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world.

First Hanford Robot System
Built in 1960
Cost: Approximately $45,000
Purpose:  Recover spent fuel that occasionally became entrapped in rear face hardware of the old Hanford graphite core reactors during fuel charge-discharge operations.

There were so many interesting facts to read and observe on this tour.   The site was top secret for the dangerous project and safety was a big concern.

 

This is the cooling system that used water from the Columbia River.

The U.S. entry into World War II

 

Employee housing

A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor effected by immediately terminating the fission reaction. It is also the name that is given to the manually operated kill switch that initiates the shutdown.

 

Controlling a Reactor

The operators of the B Reactor manipulated control rods through this panel to ensure the smooth operation of the reactor.  The gauges on the panel and covering the walls of the control room allowed operators to monitor temperature, pressure, and power levels throughout the reactor core.  Based on the readings, operators could adjust the control rods to speed up or slow down the reaction, or "SCRAM" the reactor - shutting it down in case of emergency.

Many instruments on the control panel were built onsite and had never been used in an industrial setting prior to the creation of the B Reactor. 

Caution:  Bumping panel may cause SCRAM

This is a view behind the wall.

Enrico Fermi was an Italian and later naturalized American physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb".

Leona Harriet Woods, later known as Leona Woods Marshall and Leona Woods Marshall Libby, was an American physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bomb.

The compact and lightweight Digital Cutie Pie is useful for measuring exposure and dose rates, determining shielding effectiveness, checking source containers, monitoring radiation areas, and checking results following decontamination procedures.

It was interesting to see these paper Deactivated System tags hanging from variousf pieces of equipment at the plant.

THIS PHONE IS CONNECTED TO THE EMERGENCY "CRASH ALARM" TELEPHONE CIRCUIT.  A nearly continuous ring is a signal for an emergency message.  Lift receiver - listen for instructions - DO NOT SPEAK - DO NOT HANG UP UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO.  STAND BY for an emergency message.  Relay message to building emergency personnel.

This patch was issued to military personnel who participated in the Manhattan Project.
The background of the patch is blue to represent the universe.  A white cloud and a lightening bolt form a question mark which symbolizes the unknown results and the secrecy surrounding the project.  The lightning bolt extends down to split a yellow atom, which represents atomic fission and the expected success of the test.
A red and blue star in the center of the question mark is the insignia for the Army Service Forces to which soldiers working on the Manhattan Project were assigned. 

I earned another Junior Ranger Badge!

The tour was very interesting and we would recommend it for anyone in the Hanford, Washington area.  

 

Back at the campground.....

Barge going up the Snake River

 

This Hood Park COE campground was nice but it has these huge spiders which love RV's! 

Every day we would clean off the spiders and their webs only to find them back again within hours!  Here is a sample of the spiders we cleaned off our rig.

 

I'm afraid if we left the RV for too long it would be totally enclosed with spider webs.

Luckily none of those ugly things got inside the RV!

View across the river from the campground.

 

After two weeks, it was time to leave our friends and continue with our travels.  We had a great time with Linda & Randy and Rylee. 

Randy, Linda, Nancy, and Al

Even Rylee was sad.

We'll see them again in December at Sunshine Acres in Mesa, AZ for the winter.  

Here is the area covered in this entry:

We're continuing south, making our way down the east side of Nevada in the next entry.  Thanks for following along......