I've been to three
nuclear areas, 2 testing sites and one
accident site.
White Sands NM and
Trinity are the testing zones, and both have really interesting
tourist traps. The
sand at White Sands is from
gypsum, and feels slightly different, perhaps stickier. It definitely has a greater tendency to get into clothing and shoes than other large expanses of
sand I have visited.
The accident site is Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, though I have no actual proof. Rumors say that a truckload of radioactive cobalt was stolen while the driver went in to a local pub for a bathroom break, and since the cobalt wasn't obviously radioactive it was sold for scrap metal.
Once the theft was discovered, the next step was to trace and recover it. Unfortunately, by that time it was mostly made into chrome furniture. Radioactive table legs and kitchen chairs have been found all over the southwest, and as the rumor goes, this has only accounted for about a tenth of the metal.