# Places you've been. . .

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-youve-been/839879>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 8, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-youve-been/839879 "2019-09-08T14:38:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 13

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**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-youve-been/839879/241 "2019-10-12T03:47:14Z")

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> [@commasense](#):
>
> Sorry I’m a little late to the game.
> 
> I’ve been in:
> 
> [ul]  
> [li]The palatial home of a conservative U. S. billionaire (no, not that one).[/li]  
> [li]The projection booths of at least a dozen IMAX theaters, including the one at the National Air and Space Museum, where I used to work.[/li]  
> [li]Oak Ridge National Laboratory, including the X-10 reactor, the first nuclear reactor after Fermi’s original “pile” in Chicago; the immense [K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25); and the [Y-12 Isotope Separation Plant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-12_National_Security_Complex). The first of these is occasionally open to the public, but the last two are not, AFAIK. [/li]  
> [li]The B Reactor, the world’s first plutonium production reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state. [/li](I visited Oak Ridge and Hanford while assisting with a Smithsonian research program on the Manhattan Project.)
> 
> [li]The cockpit of the B-29 Enola Gay, and sat in the bombardier’s seat.[/li][li] The cockpit of an Air New Zealand 767 during a landing. [/li][li] Michael Andretti’s Champ Car (sitting still). [/li][li] The two-seat IndyCar racecar, running two laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (This one anyone can do if you pony up the bucks, so not as exclusive as the other items on this list.) [/li][/ul]

I just thought of a few more interesting places I’ve been:

Inside the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV2) built by my friend Sean Casey to shoot IMAX film inside a tornado. I got a ride around the streets of Chattanooga a few years ago. (No tornado chasing, unfortunately.)

Inside the cab of the Canadian Pacific steam engine, [The Empress (2816)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Pacific_2816), as it was making up a train in the yard in preparation for a four-day filming excursion from Vancouver to Calgary for the IMAX film, _Rocky Mountain Express_. Then riding on that train for the excursion. It was incredible!

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**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-youve-been/839879/242 "2019-10-12T05:36:57Z")

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I’ve spent a few days at the US special forces base in the Daykundi Province of Afghanistan, there was an old Soviet base on another hilltop and a fort that Alexander the Great had built on yet another.

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**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-youve-been/839879/243 "2019-10-12T15:10:23Z")

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I’m pretty sure no one on this board has ever been in my back yard, staring awestruck at my ten-foot-tall banana plants while an adolescent field spaniel untied their shoelaces.

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