Wednesday, July 11

Bandelier National Monument and Los Alamos

We made a late morning start on an expedition to Bandelier National Monument and a side trip to Los Alamos, driving north and west through gorgeous high desert scenery, and arriving at the town of White Rock at about 11:00. Because of a disastrous fire and flood in 2011, automobile traffic to the park was banned,  so free shuttle bus service from a dedicated parking lot in White Rock was provided instead.

Cave Dwellings

The park is named for a Swiss anthropologist and archeologist, Adolph Bandelier (1840-1914), who visited and studied the site in the 1880s. It was made a national monument in 1916. It features a dramatic geological setting, with towering cliffs on both sides of a canyon and a fascinating anthropological site, where Anasazi peoples lived from about 1150 to 1450 AD, in a large village on the valley floor and in dramatic cliff dwellings, where the inhabitants lived in caves and in structures several stories high, pinned to the cliff. Winding stone walls, kivas and what once were “apartments” with common walls are spread out over a large area in the valley.  Archeological digs are still continuing.

Joy and I went on a hot 1-1/2 mile walk along the valley floor, at one point climbing a steep series of steps to explore caves high on the cliff wall. When we’d stop to rest we were stunned time and again by the extraordinary scenery: jagged pock-marked rocks rising suddenly from the valley floor, majestic mesas rising high above us and stretching out into the distance. We were glad the walk was no longer than 1-1/2 miles, however.

The Rio Grande from White Rock

We rode the shuttle bus back to White Rock at about 3:00, then drove a mile to an observation point high above the Rio Grande. A dizzying drop to the river far below, and a view of mountains and plains that stretched a hundred miles or more.

Then it was off to Los Alamos, with rain threatening from time to time. On the advice of a guide at the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, we unwisely went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. The burritos we both ordered were pretty bad. We had to take them outside to eat because the floors inside were being mopped with a detergent strong enough to make the eyes water. We sat at a table under an overhanging ledge and watched the rain come down.

We made a brief visit to the Bradbury Science Museum, a creation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the descendant of the Manhattan project team under J. Robert Oppenheimer, that had developed the first atomic bombs there. The museum was somewhere between a joke and a disgrace: in an exhibit purporting to show the early history of the project, visitors were first given a simplistic video presentation of the origins and course of World War II, with an emphasis on the high number of casualties suffered by the American forces concluding with the inevitable message that without the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki many more American lives would have been lost. No mention of the efforts of some, including Manhattan Project scientists, to persuade President Truman to set off a demonstration blast in Tokyo Bay in hopes of persuading the Japanese to surrender; and no description or photographs of any of the damage to the two cities or the huge loss of life. They were only Japanese, after all.

Another exhibit included mockups of the first two atomic bombs, “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” and the evolution from them to more powerful and versatile weapons. We decided to leave before touring the rest of the exhibit, but if there was any attention given to the issue of non-proliferation, of other arms control efforts, or to the effects of nuclear weapons, they were not in evidence. The whole sense of gee whiz was augmented  by the inexplicable number of mind games scattered around the floor, where players could move blocks or sticks or other objects around to accomplish – what? We didn’t stay to look.

All in all, the entire museum seemed to be aimed at teenage boys and dedicated to the proposition that war is heck. Take a look at its website for an idea of its concept and message: http://www.lanl.gov/museum/index.shtml.

Back to Santa Fe to pick up a steak and a potato for dinner, to get lost in the winding streets for awhile, and finally to arrive back at Nancy’s in time for a shower and dinner at 7.  The steak was delicious.

Flora at Bandelier