I have a new collaborator on a work project who lives in New Mexico. I have been to New Mexico a few times as a child, once as an adult. I did a some training in Albuquerque a decade ago. I added a couple of days to that trip and did a little touring. I started to spend the day in Santa Fe, it was massively crowded, parking was impossible, and it was raining, so I got out of town. I drove north, looked at the GPS and realized I was near Las Alamos. Los Alamos was home the Manhattan project, the super secret project to develop nuclear bombs during World War II. Why not?
There is a nice small museum there, the photo above are replicas of the two original devices, Little Boy and Fat Man. The gravity of what happened there is overwhelming. I drove through the National Laboratory grounds, a weird experience that requires permission from the guard and instructions to not stop unless and until the police pull up behind you. There is a national park with remains of cliff dwellings on the other side that I went to see.
I would like to go back to New Mexico, I think I will avoid Las Alamos the next trip. Too weird in ways that are hard to explain.
I may perhaps understand your eerie feelings about Las Alamos, how heavy the weight of history and death can be? It's like every time I'm in Europe, I feel its misery-and-blood-soaked earth, every square inch of it over the millennia.
ReplyDeleteIn Germany in 2015, turn left to go to an aircraft museum, right to go to a concentration camp, how strong did I feel that day?
DeleteWith exception to California and Washington State..... I have never been able to embrace that section of our country like NM, AZ and Texas. And over here FL. I have no idea. Been several times to them all, and have yet felt I even ever needed to go.
ReplyDeleteI went to the first grade in Phoenix, and the landscape draws me in.
DeleteLittle Boy and Fat Man are such cute names for weapons of mass destruction.
ReplyDeleteOppenheimer referred to them as the gadgets.
DeleteI’d avoid Los Alamos (although there’s another original town of Los Alamos that a former friend’s family owns... Texas oil people who bought the land to graze their cattle). Anyway... I loved Santa Fe.
ReplyDeleteI should try Santa Fe again. My father had an uncle who retired to the NM.
DeleteI love traveling in New Mexico. The whole state is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLove the terrain
DeleteI very nearly moved to Santa Fe many years ago. It's one of my favorite spots in the world, though it lacks proximity to the ocean which I love more.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lack of water, I like being near the water
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