Leaving New Mexico

We entered New Mexico en route to Guadalupe National Park, in Texas, and have now been here for 8 days.  New Mexico is the 4th largest of the states, behind Alaska, California, Texas and Montana.  Where to begin?  How about at the end?

Today, we visited Los Alamos.  This is a small town on top of an indescribably beautiful mesa.  Looking down main street we see snow-capped peaks behind Santa Fe, across the Rio Grande valley.  We were surprised to cross the Rio Grande river on the way into Los Alamos.  Once in town we visited the Bradbury science museum.  The museum is named for a form director of the lab, and not the science fiction author.  For those who don't know, Los Alamos was one of the Manhattan project sites that developed the first nuclear weapons.  A who's who of the world's scientist and engineers worked here in secret to develop our nation's nuclear weapon technology.  We were surprised to learn how this spot was chosen.  Robert Oppenheimer, the first technical director had visited the area as a kid.  There was a sort of a scout camp/school here.  Boys came to study and become skilled in outdoorsmanship.   He knew the area was remote, but with the needed infrastructure.  Sadly for a Mr. Pond, whose life dream was to build and run the camp, the federal government took it from him for national security purposes.  There were also Pueblo Indians here, who according to the film we saw, "gladly gave up there homes and farms" for the war effort.  This may be true, but I'd prefer to hear that from them or their descendants. 

Almost all of the original buildings are gone, and an entirely new LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) stands on the hill behind town.  We visited so called "bathtub row" which housed Oppenheimer and other senior staff.  It was called that because they were the only residences with bathtubs.  Most of the staff lived in apartment or dormitory style housing. 

One of my favorite parts of the day was talking with Dr. Doug Reilly.  He is a retired physicist from the  lab who now volunteers for the history museum.  He was working a crossword puzzle in the Bethe house when we walked in.  Hans Albrecht Bethe (German: [ˈhans ˈalbʁɛçt ˈbeːtə]; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German and American nuclear physicist who, in addition to making important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis.  The Historical society now owns this house and has it set up for a walking tour.  Inside the home we saw the actual Nobel medal won by Frederick Reines.  Frederick Reines (RYE-ness);^[2] (March 16, 1918 – August 26, 1998) was an American physicist. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-detection of the neutrino with Clyde Cowan in the neutrino experiment. He may be the only scientist in history "so intimately associated with the discovery of an elementary particle and the subsequent thorough investigation of its fundamental properties".  When I was getting my undergrad degree in Nuclear Engineering I was fascinated by Neutrinos due to the fact that no one had theorized that such a particle might exist until the emerging mathematics of modern physics implied that such a particle should exist.  Scientist then went on to search for it, which turned out to be terribly difficult to do.  Since a Neutrino has no mass, it has incredibly high energy and thus does not easily interact with things like particle detectors.

I really enjoyed talked with Dr. Reilly who had worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency and their mission of monitoring compliance with a series of nuclear disarmament treaties over several decades. 

After downtown Los Alamos we drove up to the Valles Caldera.  About 15 million years ago a volcanic cone collapsed creating the caldera.  We didn't make the hike all the way up, as we hadn't planned for  hike.  I did not know of the existence of the caldera until we visited Los Alamos.  You can't hike very far out here without being prepared.  The elevation is over 9000 feet, and we had no water to carry on our trip.  Apparently a large herd of elk reside in the area.  Still we had a beautiful 45 minute walk through a large pine forest under the bluest skies you can imagine.

Previously, back in Santa Fe we learned of the Palace of the Governors, which was the capital of new Spain in the 1600s.  The claim is that this is the oldest capital building in what is now the US.  We took a 2 hour walking tour around the plaza.  At the end of which we learned that it was NOT a free tour, and we gladly paid the guide for the tour. 

Stanta Fe does an excellent job of managing the building and construction via building codes.  All of the buildings are low so as to blend in to the natural landscape, and conform to one of 3 styles; Pueblo, territorial or Pueblo revival.  Santa Fe is the countries third largest art market, behind New York and San Fransisco. 

Arriving in Santa Fe we had planned on staying at the Hyde Memorial State Park.  We called a few miles out (they don't take reservations) and found out that they were full.  We ended up in the ominously named Trailer Ranch.  However, it turned out to be very nice park. Despite being on a busy street, it was quiet, and there were plenty of trees.  It was our first real stay in a commercial RV park that led to us interacting with our fellow RVers.  It was fun.  We had dinner with an old friend of mine from my Peace Corps Lesotho days, George Stengren.  George is a retired public school teacher from New York who is now pursing a master's degree in liberal arts at St. John's College in Santa Fe.  He has found his element.  He took us to the campus of this beautiful school where we met some of his fellow students translating and interpreting a passage in Greek in their spare time.  Apparently, it's that kind of school.  Fun fact, the creator of the TV series, McGyver is a St. John's grad.  Also, croquet is their only extramural sport, and they routinely trounce the US Naval Academy at croquet.  Some midshipman is claimed to have remarked that St John's practices for croquet as hard as the university of Alabama practices for men's football.

We traveled up to Santa Fe from Las Cruces via a series of remote roads recommended by my old friend from Texarkana, TX days, Jeff Kramer.  I think I commented on this trip in a previous post.

In summary, New Mexico is a beautiful treasure.  While driving, the scenery changes every 30 minutes.  There is a lot of wind.  There is oil and  gas, and cattle and grass.  According to Dr. Reilly, New Mexico receives $3.50 in Federal Spending (Los Alamos, Sandia) for every dollar sent to Washington by New Mexicans. 

Frances has booked us a spot near Monument Valley for tomorrow, Earth Day, so on we go to Arizona.  Goodbye, New Mexico.