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Odds are good you know a bit about the development of the nuclear bomb that ended the Pacific campaign of WWII. 

If you haven't gone deep into the history, discussions are often relegated to the Manhattan Project's work in Los Alamos where the bombs were built and tested. But did you know the nuclear materials used in said bombs were not created in Los Alamos but instead were split between two other sites in the USA (for safety and security purposes)?

The plutonium enrichment was actually achieved at a reactor outside of the Tri-Cities in Washington state, and the Hanford B Reactor is now a National Historic Site that is open for tours in partnership with the Department of Energy!

I was fortunate enough to attend a media visit to this one and have to admit, it is a pretty amazing tour all around.

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When you think of libations in Virginia, odds are good your first thought may be to go to Virginia wineries. While this state has been producing some pretty delicious wines for the better part of five decades, the craft brewery scene here has been growing in recent years as well- so much so that you can make a brewery crawl out of your visit if you wanted!

Naturally, that is exactly what I did.

So in this one, I wanted to share a few of the great craft breweries that you should have on your radar in and around Shenandoah County, Virginia! 

Note: I was hosted by Shenandoah County for part of my trip in Virginia. As always, all opinions are my own.

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While it is easy to say that all caves have a long history (they're obviously formed over hundreds of thousands or millions of years even), for most their known history is quite short by perspective- most caves we've been to have only been discovered in the last hundred years or so. Shenandoah Caverns is no different.

This one was discovered by two boys in 1884 while they were playing in a quarry on their farm's property which was being used for the creation of a nearby train line. They discovered cool air coming out of a hole in the ground and, in true 1800's fashion, simply grabbed some rope and candles and lowered themselves into the cave below to explore. 

The boys and their friends would explore the cave more over the years, and in 1922 one of the investors of the train line purchased the land from the family, opened the cave to tourism, and the rest, they say, is history.

I visited this cave in 2021, just one year shy of their 100-year anniversary of opening to the public, and share a bit more of what you can expect when visiting this massive cavern beneath the Earth! 

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