Potluck # 50 Global Nation

Exercise: Use one, or more, of these websites and plan your dream vacation. Post your destination and things you’ll be seeing or doing on your blog before you get carried away in your imaginings of sipping exotic beverages on a beach or climbing K2.

As usual Google Maps never fails to create curiosity with its options for searching and exploring. Using Simpatigo.com I looked at a road trip from Baytown to Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee. The site says it doesn't tell you where to go...which is true. The directions listed were far from ideal and certainly not the way we would travel but it did show points of interest across the map the you might not have heard of otherwise. The brief synopsis at each point on the map can sometimes be intriguing and other times baffling. Some list websites for further investigation while others list very short descriptions that fail to draw interest.

How about this one;
"Brewpub: Grab a cold flaming stone beer ($3.75), brewed using stones from a wood-fired oven, at boscos brewpub. New York Times1805 21st Ave South, Nashville, TN" - Short but well written, almost sounds like an ad...Hmmm...

Or this;
"Secret town from WW2: A uranium plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was once a secret guarded so fervently that the plant didn't have an address, nor did it appear on any maps. But it's a secret no more -- in fact, it's a tourist attraction. Parts of the plant are now open for visitors to explore on a 2.5-hour guided tour. But there's a catch -- the visitors must be American citizens. The Oak Ridge facility is the site of the world's first fully-operational nuclear reactor, and oversaw the separation of uranium 235 from natural uranium. It was also a key part of the project that instrumented the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima. The lives of those who lived and worked in Oak Ridge were closely intertwined with this secretive operation, so closely guarded that the word uranium was rarely used -- tuballoy was a common stand-in. www.oakridgevisitor.composted by martha Edwards of www.gadling.com" -Interesting since my grandfather worked here as a boy. And who new it would be safe to *tour* a secret facility that once made uranium. Certainly worth reading about!