Days of Sunshine

A few short hours south and east of Albuquerque is the small city of Alamogordo, home to the Air Weapons Missile Testing Range, White Sands National Monument, a landing strip for the Space Shuttle (used once in 1982), and the center for the first atomic test back in 1945. The actual location of that test, by the way, was at the “Trinity Site”, about 60 miles to the northwest. That first atomic bomb was brought by vehicle from Los Alamos (north of Santa Fe). We didn't visit the actual site; it’s only open to the public on the first Saturdays of April and October, should you wish to make that pilgrimage.

So why, given what’s here, did we make this part of our tour of the Southwest? The answer is: White Sands National Monument. It was really quite neat and unique. We spent a couple of hours hiking around the white dunes. We understand that the main highway to Los Cruces and the National Monument itself are closed every so often for a few hours when missile testing is under way. The military-industrial complex at work, I guess.

We also visited the New Mexico National Space Museum and took in an IMAX show on the Hubble Space Telescope. So much of this space stuff was part of my teen-age years. I remember being quite enthralled by it all at the time, and I guess this interest has lasted all my life.

We stayed a couple of nights at a New Mexico State Park south of town where we had a nice 8 km hike up into a canyon with the cactus and ocotilla plants. It was cool, but still warm enough that I was able to hike in my T-shirt.

Tomorrow we’re up and over a mountain range en route to Carlsbad and then Texas.