More Rocks!

On Thursday we drove to the Bandelier National Monument, which is about 50 miles from Santa Fe, near Los Alamos.  Bandelier is known for its cliff dwellings and great mountain views.  The landscape was made from a huge volcanic eruption thousands of years ago, so the rocks  and cliffs take interesting forms.  The park was ravaged by a fire this past summer that claimed 60% of it, but fortunately the main tourist part (cliff dwellings, loop trail and visitor’s center) were not touched.  However, following the fire came a flood and that caused the park to shut down for three months.  It just reopened two weeks ago but you can only get in via a shuttle and can only walk on the main loop trail for about two thirds of it.  So, what could have been a day long visit to hike a few trails and have a picnic turned into a 30 minute shuttle ride (one-way), a 1 hour walk on the trail and then a 30 minute return ride.  It was still worth it and fortunately it was free for us as we have an annual pass to the national parks and monuments.

On to the pictures.

The visitor center and parking lot with mountains in background.  This is where the shuttle drops you off.

Adobe dwelling.  Notice the holes in the rock, these are living spaces carved out by the Native Americans hundreds of years ago.

 Interesting rock formations.

Fran examining one of the cliff dwellings.

More cliff dwellings.

A view of the area.

Following Bandelier we drove to Los Alamos as it is only 10 miles away.  This is where the first atomic bomb was built for World War II and currently houses the Los Alamos National Lab where various government research projects are conducted.  There is a small museum, Bradbury Science Museum, that gives you the history of the lab and shows you what it currently works on. 

Replica of “Fat Man”, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. This was a plutonium bomb.

Replica of “Little Boy”, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.  This was a uranium bomb.

The drive to Los Alamos was spectacular.  The highway is on the edge of a mountain up to the town.  The views are just spectacular on the drive up and down on this highway (highway 502).  I could not get any pictures that would show the road but you can get a feel for it if you go to Google Maps and put in Los Alamos, NM.  The satellite image will come up and just follow Highway 502 out of town.  If you zoom in you should be able to get an idea of how cool this drive was.

Here is a picture I did take to show you the view.

Your science lesson for today has concluded.