The Road Home to Santa Fe

Leaving the Monastary of Christ in the Desert, you begin the one hour+ trip on the washboard one lane clay road that winds around the mountains showing off their beautiful colors as the sun is setting. It is slow going, not just because of the condition of the road, but also the cattle freely crossing the road where ever they wish. For the entire trip back to Route 84 there is no sign of civilization, as if the peacefulness of the monastary has extended this far.

Travel Dreams: The World

A big part of the joy of traveling is the dreaming part; where do I go next?
I'm loving living in Santa Fe and will continue writing about it for as long as I live here, but I am also beginning to plan my second trip around the world. With the economy the way that it is, I'm afraid that if I don't cash in my frequent flyer miles now, I may not have the opportunity later. Already the airlines have upped the number of FF miles needed for an around the world trip.
Earlier in this blog I wrote about my last round the world trip travelling east and including Peru, Egypt, Russia, Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Bhutan, Tibet, China, and Hong Kong.
This time I hope do do things differently and I would appreciate your advice about any aspect of the trip. My blog allows you to add your comments at the end of each section, so please do.
As in the past I will travel to countries I have never visited, but this time I will travel west. Here is a tentative plan for the trip.
1.Indonesia, focusing on Borneo
2. Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand
3. Bangladesh, Eastern India, and Nepal
4. Eastern Europe, Greece, and Egypt
5. Southern Africa
6. Central America
Also different, I'm thinking about traveling for a year (beginning Jan 2010) and taking my cat (Big Kitty) along.
If this becomes a reality and as things develop, I will include them in my blog. Hopefully other travelers can learn from the many mistakes that I seem to make while traveling. It's all part of the adventure.
Happy Trails from Ramblin Me

Santa Fe Where "Different" = "Normal"

After 4 months of wandering around Santa Fe, I'm starting to realize why it is aptly called "The City Different" and why it feels like coming home to an oddball/eccentric like myself. Just a few examples of how anything goes:
1. The calendar of upcoming events for a week in the local paper included Tibetan throat singing, Irish folk dancing, a Wiccan [good witch] celebration, Hannukkah on Ice, and an introduction to Kabala.
2. Buying cat food at Petsmart, I saw a woman dancing with all her heart to the 70s rock playing over the PA system.
3. In another store a 50+ year old woman with blue hair and a pink feathery jacket over layers of clothing told me that she "just felt like going back to her punk roots today."
4. The rodeo grounds and stadium are next door to the community center which contains an ice skating rink, 4 indoor swimming pools, gyms, and an expresso bar.
5. The average person here is by no means average. Most are Native American, Spanish, or Mexican, with white anglos in the minority. There are lots of tall lean older folks with long hair and dressed with flair and character. They are great looking, distinctive, articulate, passionate about their beliefs, but with a wonderful dry sense of humor. It's where all the good looking hippies have come to retire.

Los Alamos Final Notes

Before leaving the subject of Los Alamos, the town where the atomic bomb was invented, I highly recommend that you read Joseph Kanon's murder mystery titled, "Los Alamos." The story is fiction but the setting is Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project while the bomb was being developed and tested. It is a terrific read as well as a love story to the area around Santa Fe and Los Alamos. It makes you want to visit the area.
On a personal note; my visit to Los Alamos was an unexpected link to a part of my early life. When I was 5 years old, my family was sent to live in Japan as part of the US military presence there following World War II. It was only a few years after the US had dropped the two atomic bombs on Japan that ended the war. My family couldn't get military housing, so we found ourselves living in a Japanese mountain village where very few people had ever seen an American. There should have been so much hatred and resentment, but the experience was one of the best of my life. Visiting Los Alamos was like coming back to the origins of that experience.

Los Alamos-It's the Bomb!

In exploring the area, I seem to making ever-widening concentric circles. Still at the "30 minutes driving time from Santa Fe" circle, I went to visit Los Alamos, the town where the atomic bomb was born.
It's a very easy trip. Take St. Francis (Rt 285) north and then west on Rt 502 until you drive into the town of Los Alamos.

The Road to Los Alamos

At the intersection of Rt 285 and Rt 502, the scenery changes dramatically from the rambling high desert surrounded by mountains to mesas - mountains that look like the tops have been sheared off. It's a startling change and driving becomes difficult. I wanted to stop and look at the magnificent scenery, but as usual, there are no places to stop and pull over. You just have to keep going as the 2 lane road keeps climbing through places that have been carved from rock.

Trip to Los Alamos

Heading west on Rt 502, you pass through the San Ildefonso Pueblo Reservation and as you complete one of the curves around the climbing mountain area, it seems like the bottom drops out of the scenery to your right. My heart started racing. The drop was so unexpected and there was no place to pull over. It's like your first roller coaster ride!
To give you some perspective, the tiny building in the center is actually a large 4-5 story business complex.

Entering Los Alamos

The town is very different from Santa Fe, even though they are only 30 minutes apart. There are no adobe houses or flat roofs. It feels more like a small college town, with many apartment complexes and very quiet, almost unpopulated shopping areas. You can almost feel the intelligence in the air.
Even though the town has the highest per capita income in New Mexico, I saw very few housing developments.

Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos

In 1917, Los Alamos consisted of a large successful ranch, when A.J. Connell, one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders came to open a school for boys. He worked with an architect to design the distinctive look of the Fuller Lodge (pictured) and all of the teacher's cottages and support buildings. They were all designed with the vertical logs and stone fireplaces and additions. These were all the buildings that became the foundation of the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb. The U.S. Government took over all of the buildings on the site in 1943. The town was a complete secret from the rest of the world until the Atomic Energy Commision agreed to begin selling the property to individuals in 1957.

Los Alamos Ranch School

A.J. Connell's goal for his school was to create a place where academic excellence was combined with physical toughening (something between the Boy Scouts and Outward Bound). He actually hired top academics from the Ivy League schools for the first part and the former head of the Boy Scout organization to accomplish the second.
A mark of his success was that every boy who graduated was accepted into the college of his choice.
Imagine Connell's shock when the U.S. Goverment evicted him and everyone else from his school for a "secret project" after he successfully ran the school for 25 years.

Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos

The architect who designed the lodge used vertical logs, similar to some of the original historical structures of the area. The logs used in the Lodge were individually selected and cured for a year before the building process began. The interior is decorated with original Navajo rugs and furniture made of wood and leather.

Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos

The Manhattan Project took over the Fuller Lodge, which was designed, built, and owned by the Los Alamos Ranch School for boys. It was converted from the boy's dormitory and dining hall to the scientist's meeting area, dining hall, and nurse's office. This is the dining area where the great physicists, like Oppenheimer, Fermi, and Feynman would meet for meals and high level discussions.
These days the Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina is famous for having the most PhDs per square mile of any city in the U.S.. I would venture to say that the Fuller Lodge had the most Nobel Prize winners per square mile of any place in the U.S., or perhaps the world.

Los Alamos Quanset Hut

If you were not a top scientist with the Manhattan Project, chances are that you lived in a trailer, a quanset hut, or makeshift building. Also, because of the war, nothing could be constructed using iron. This meant only showers, no bathtubs for anyone living in these places. The only ones with tubs were the top scientists who lived in the beautiful log homes that were originally part of the Los Alamos Ranch School for boys. These high staus homes were all along 20th street close to the Fuller Lodge. The street quickly became known as "Bathtub Row," and recently the name of the street officially became "Bathtub Row."

The Oppenheimer House

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the famous scientist and leader of the group of scientists in the Manhattan Project was given the best house of all of the original Los Alamos Ranch school houses. It is a short walk from the Fuller Lodge to his house at the intersection of Bathhouse Row and Peach Street. The house is now privately owned and not open to the public, so this is the best picture I could get without being arrested.

Ashby Pond in Los Alamos

The Ducks were ice skating at Ashby Pond, site of the Ice House Memorial to the Manhattan Project.

Los Alamos Ice House Memorial

This memorial commemorates the site of the Los Alamos laboratory that built the prototype atomic bomb that was used at the Trinity test site, 225 miles south, near Socorro, New Mexico. The blast could be seen from the scientists' homes in Los Alamos. The memorial structure sits near the Ashby Pond in a beautiful park area.

Los Alamos Trinity Test Site

This photo of J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the scientists, and General Leslie R. Graves, Military leader of the Manhattan Project, is at the Ice House Memorial. It is the site of the Los Alamos test of the atomic bomb, before it was used on Japan. The twisted metal at their feet is all that was left of a 100 ft. metal structure after the test.

Los Alamos Historical Museum

The Guest House for the Los Alamos Ranch School was turned into a Guest House for visiting scientists for the Manhattan Project. It is now the Los Alamos County Historical Museum. At the counter a basket of red hots are for sale (irony or intention?).
The trip through the 7-8 small rooms will give you whiplash, as you go through millions of years of history; from the original geological formation of the mesa, to the settlement of the Pueblo village, and then to the Ranch School for boys, the Manhattan Project to develop the Atomic Bomb, and the final destruction of the 2 Japanese Cities that ended World War II.

Los Alamos Historical Museum

One room in the museum was dedicated to the follow -on events from the atom bomb. It included completely reconstructed bomb shelters, items from the protest movement, and commercial ventures. The earrings in the newspaper article (lower left side in picture) were made of the molten remains following the first bomb test (Trinity).
The last thing you see as you leave the museum is two 5 1/2 ft panoramic aerial photos; one of each of the two Japanese cities that were bombed. They define total destruction.

Los Alamos Today

With the many layers of history it is interesting to see the town of today. Of the 18,343 inhabitants, 60% work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, the latest variation of the secret Manhattan Project. It has a $2 billion budget, employees more than 11,000 people, and operates more than 2,100 facilities across its 38 square miles of land.
I couldn't get close enough for picures. As the map states, "badge holders only."
The "Where Discoveries are Made" banner hangs all over the downtown shopping area and has an interesting logo which I assume is an atomic bomb. A local T shirt shop sells one with "The Atomic City, Los Alamos, N.M." with a picture of a mushroom cloud, and another with "I.B. Glowing, Los Alamos, New Mexico." in neon colors. Everything has a science focus including the Bradbury Museum which encourages you to "Bring Your Brain to Bradbury."

Leaving Los Alamos

The trip home through the stark natural landscape seemed like an anachronism to the futuristic purpose of the small town it is protecting.

Trail Map of Ski Santa Fe

For the skiers, here is a trail map of Ski Santa Fe, for a basic idea of the six chairs and various trails. Every ski resort has it's own unique names for their trails, especially the most difficult ones (double and triple black diamonds). Here at Ski Santa Fe, "Parachute" paints a picture of steepness, but "Muerte" gets the prize for saying "ski at your own risk." I believe it's the Spanish word for death.
Don't wait for me there.
For your own map and other information about Ski Santa Fe, click on www.skisantafe.com .
Happy Trails

Oddity at Base Lodge

It looks like a 3 ft tall rhinoceros in ski clothes and goggles, but I have no idea why. It's just there!

Cuteness at Base Lodge

She looks so cute and sweet, but she probably skies double diamonds.

Breaktime at Ski Santa Fe

Breaktime for me is a cup of hot cocoa at the base lodge. There's an enormous variety of food, but their specialty is chile (what else?). There is a mid mountain lodge and you can smell the burgers cooking on an open grill as you ski by (yum).