Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Travel Tuesday - New Mexico


 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.   

12 comments:

  1. 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.

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    1. In 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?

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  2. With 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.

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    1. I went to the first grade in Phoenix, and the landscape draws me in.

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  3. Anonymous9/14/2021

    Little Boy and Fat Man are such cute names for weapons of mass destruction.

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    1. Oppenheimer referred to them as the gadgets.

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  4. I’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.

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    1. I should try Santa Fe again. My father had an uncle who retired to the NM.

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  5. I love traveling in New Mexico. The whole state is beautiful.

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  6. I 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.

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    1. There is a lack of water, I like being near the water

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