September 28, 2007

September 28, 2007

We left Taos, NM driving south. Near Espanola we turned west heading uphill to Los Alamos. The town of Los Alamos is scattered atop several finger mesas on the edge of a twelve-mile wide extinct volcanic caldera called Valle Grande. Los Alamos National Laboratory sponsors the Bradbury Science Museum covering the history of the Manhattan Project of WWII along with some of their current research efforts. The history exhibits and film are very well done. The Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb was an amazing accomplishment performed in less than 2 ½ years by a group of 3000 scientists and technicians with an average age of 24. What is even more amazing is that Los Alamos Natl. Lab now employs 15,000 doing who knows what. This only proves government programs can only grow and never contract.

After Aimee pulled me out of the museum we walked a couple blocks to Fuller Lodge. This large log beam building was originally the site of an elite boys ranch, later the recreation center for the Manhattan Project and now an art center. After a brief stroll around we head out driving to Santa Fe where we spend the night at a private park.