Santa Fe

Its nice to get away from Colorado and the cold and snow. Santa Fe is the second oldest city in the US and the oldest state capital. It was founded 20 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. By the Spanish. In the town square is this plaque showing its the start of the Santa Fe trail. Where else would the Santa Fe trail start?

 An hours drive from Santa Fe sits the town of Los Alamos which as we all know is where the secret research went on to develop the atomic bomb. It was called the Manhattan Project. This museum is one of the buildings used as living quarters for some of the scientists.

 Around this small lake sat most of the research buildings in which the development took place. The buildings have been torn down and replaced with a park.

This was a school where rich eastern kids came to learn about the outdoors and healthy activities. It was taken over by the government in 1943 and used as living quarters for the single scientists. Its now a hotel and museum.

Los Alamos sits high atop a mesa and can only be accessed by 2 roads, both of which were restricted during the war. It would have been very hard to sneak in to find out what was going on there. This is where the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were created.

This is what a mesa looks like. You can see how hard it would be to sneak in. There are now over 2100 different facilities owned by the Dept of Energy around Los Alamos. They mainly look after nuclear security and develop and safeguard Americas nuclear deterrent force.

About an hour west of Los Alamos is the Valles Caldera. This is an 89000 acre crater caused by volcanic forces. At one time it was a huge bulge in the earth caused by the upward pressure of volcanic lava. When the pressure got too high, the edges of the bulge split open allowing the lava to escape. The bulge then dropped over 3000 feet forming the flat bowl area in the picture. The hills around are formed from the lava which escaped at the edges. Can you imagine the violence of such an activity?

50 miles away from the caledra we found this overlook with the Rio Grande river in the valley. Also found this  stag horn Cholla which we haven't seen since leaving the west 2 years ago. Like an old friend; but still nasty. The rocks around me are lava rocks thrown up by the collapse of the caldera, 50 miles away, some explosion, huh?

Well, time to head on to our next adventure, but not before a bit of snow overnight just to make us happy to be heading south to Las Cruces New Mexico.