10/27/2022 – 10/28/2022
Last night was a nightmare. Google Maps screwed me over and I ran out of gas. I was heading back up to the Tri-cities to go on a tour and maps put me on the Oregon side of the Columbia River and there are very few crossings and no gas stations. I was eight miles away from the next crossing and my van shut off. It also happened to be 2AM. I flagged someone down and they were going to grab a gas can and bring it back to me. I sat for an hour before giving up on that guy and flagging someone else down. This guy actually gave me a ride to the gas station, drove me back, and flagged traffic for me as I filled up.
I got back to the Tri-cities at 5AM. I went to the gym, took a shower, then took a nap before my tour started. I was debating on going on the tour or not. I’m glad that I did. The tour was of the Manhattan Project National Historic Park. We started at the visitors center in Richland, WA. We got on the bus and they brought us 30 miles out to the reactor. The actual tour was of the first nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project and eventually the first several nuclear bombs. This was a really interesting tour. I’ve never seen the inside of a nuclear plant before.
They drove us back and I went to a couple game stores before driving to the American Hop Museum in Toppenish, WA.
The museum ended up being closed on the 28th so I went up to Yakima, WA. The Yakima valley is where most of the hops in the US is produced. Of course I had to go to a few breweries. I started at 5th Line Brewing. This place wasn’t anything special. It was a hockey themed brewery with meh beer. I went to Single Hill Brewing next. This was another very average brewery. Wandering Hop was next, more middling beer. Next was Valley Brewing. Again very average. I did watch the baseball game and have a heated discussion about electric cars with the staff. The next stop was at Hop Capital Brewing. I could not find an above average brewery in this whole area. They were having a Halloween party here that was pretty cool. Not as fun as two years ago, but still fun. They had a DJ and there were about 15 people there lol. I ended my night at an awesome nerd bar called Game & Grog. They were having a Halloween party too. They also had a DJ and they had a costume contest.
