I've noticed that the computer is putting a date on my posts when I post them. Usually, that is not the same day as our Adventure, so I will try to start putting the day in the title.
Since we felt like we had seen most of Santa Fe when we came in on the
train, we decided to take a scenic drive today. Joe found a loop drive
heading northwest that would take us through Los Alamos, so after a stop
at McDonalds to post yesterday's blog, we headed out. Our next stop
was for fuel for the car at Camel Rock gas station, where we paid
$3.29. Just up the road we saw it for $3.219 so we will fuel the RV
there tomorrow when we head to Taos.
.
Neither of us knew much of the history of Los Alamos, so it was just a fluke that we took that route. But it was very interesting. They have a walking tour that takes you past most of the historic buildings from when the Manhattan Project was underway here. I didn't even know what the Manhattan Project was -- but it was the making of the atomic bombs that ended World War II. We stopped at the Visitors Center, and after we drove/walked the walking tour, we spent an hour or so at the Scientific Museum. We started the walking tour at Ashley Pond. This area was originally a Ranch School for sickly boys but was taken over by the government to establish a location for the secret building of the atomic bombs. Scientists from around the world game to Los Alamos to make this happen.
It wouldn't be New Mexico without some art work, and some beautiful sculptures surrounded Ashley Pond.
The walking tour included Bathtub Row which housed the scientists, so named because those residences were for the original faculty of the Ranch School and had the only bathtubs in town. There were also the remains of a ancestral pueblo dwelling (roughly 1225 CE), and a fire house where the man-powered fire pump truck was stored.
The museum was wonderful. It had two films showing, one about the history of making the bomb and the current mission to maintain our country's aging weapons without nuclear testing, and the other about the community itself from 1942-1945. On display were the two bombs, the Fat Man, which was named after Winston Churchill, and dropped on Nagasaki, and the Little Boy, which was dropped on Hiroshima.
We finally decided it was time to move on, so we got a bite to eat and headed out. We backtracked to pick up a little side road, Hwy. 4, and followed it on for several miles, through the Bandelier National Monument (we drove through the campground there), and the Jemez State Monument. On this drive we finally spotted some wildlife -- 2 deer. A welcome sight!
This drive took us through the Valley Caldera National Preserve, a beautiful valley where elk roam. We lucked out and saw a herd of about a hundred (quite a distance away), then we drove back into the preserve as far as we could. We saw another herd of about 20, and a couple more off by themselves. The Jemez River runs through this preserve, and we followed that river for miles. There was a lot of fishing on it, even though it looked like little more than a stream in some places.
Prarie dogs are also plentiful in this preserve. I saw a couple when we first stopped, and one of their holes. Then as we were driving out, we came upon their prairie dog farm, must have seen 20 there popping up and down out of their holes.
When we came out of the preserve, Joe spotted a forest road a few hundred feet back, so we decided to see if we could see any more elk in there, because the lady at the preserve said they usually cross over from that side about dusk (we were a couple hours early). We drove back in there about 5 miles, then turned around and took another side road that took us back to the highway. This whole area had been destroyed by a tremendous fire back in May 2000, the 48,000 acre Cerro Grande wildfire. There was a monument commemorating the fire and community re-building in Los Alamos, but we never found it. Whether that was the same fire that destroyed this forest we don't know, but the damage was sure evident. They were logging in some areas, quite a large operation.
As we were driving out of a parking lot, I asked Joe why our car squeaked so much. He said, "well, it's elderly."
We didn't see any wildlife on this forest road, but just after we turned back on the highway, Joe spotted two elk back in the trees. We continued our drive, which took us through many Native American communities (speed limits 25, 30, 35). It took us a long time. A guy driving an oncoming car held up 2 fingers as we passed each other, so we spent the next 20 miles looking for 2 animals of any kind. We never saw anything though. Along this route, though, were beautiful mountain cliffs which were mauve and pink, then the terrain changed to the red of Sedona. We finally connected with Hwy 550 that took us back too I-25, about 40 miles south of Santa Fe. In fact, we were just north of Albuquerque and we could see the Sandia Casino where we had stayed in Albuquerque. We got back into Santa Fe about 7:30 and had dinner, then headed back to camp in the dark. It was a long day, but an Excellent Adventure. We probably drove between 150 and 200 miles in the car. The town of Los Alamos and the elk in the wildlife preserve were the highlights.
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