pass the plutonium, please

part two of my drive back south was my detour to los alamos. be warned: if you are not interested in history, science, or weirdness, you may want to skip this post. it's heavy in all three. first off, the drive to los alamos, which about 20 miles west of highway 285, was stunning. much of the way the highway was hugging the edge of a mesa, with beautiful views into and across the canyon below, such as the one above. now, it was already three by the time i got to los alamos, so i headed straight to the bradbury science museum. this was a great little science museum--it covered everything from the history of the town and lab, what it did, and what it does today. it, like the los alamos historical museum, was free. i think this is the government putting forth as much of an effort as it is ever going to as to the goings-on at los alamos. (that's a model of oppenheimer to the left, or oppie, as he was known). i wandered around the museum and then went to sit in on one of the videos, which was about nuclear weapon stockpile stewardship. it was creepy enough to begin with--remember, we are in a museum about los alamos, and when the film is about the start, the doors to the auditorium automatically close. creepy. did you know that we signed a treaty in 1996 banning all nuclear bomb testing? well, we did. of course, this just means that all of the government scientists are merely testing all of the parts separately, hoping that when all of these working parts are put together, the final product will also work. 'cause that always works. second, this means that they are trying to keep our stockpile viable as a last resort without knowing for sure if any of them actually work. this all sounds like a great idea to me. nonetheless, i'm sure that the science they are doing, etc., etc., is all great and groundbreaking and all. i just don't find it particularly comforting. by the way, those are models of little boy and fat man.

the next video i watched was on the history of los alamos. they put it in the middle of nowhere for a reason--they picked los alamos for a reason. good temperate year-round climate, near a city, easily attainable land. they built it on the grounds of what used to be a boarding school for sickly boys. and as i'm sure you know, when it was first put there, it was top secret. as in, anyone born in los alamos was born, officially, at a p.o. box in santa fe. the average age was 25--and they were scientists from all across the country and britain, as well as the few ex-pats from german occupied lands. funny thought--one street was called bathtub row covetously, because it was the only street whose houses had bathtubs. they worked ceaselessly from 1945-1949, spending 2 billion dollars, to create three working atomic bombs. at first though, they tried to make an atomic gun--thankfully, that didn't work out too well. the first bomb test was code-named trinity, the bomb called 'the gadget.' it was tested about 200 miles south of los alamos, near alamagordo (check back in a week or so--i will have been near there). after they dropped the bomb, oppenheimer said, quoting an ancient indian text, 'now i am become death, the destroyer of worlds.' of course, two bombs were dropped on nagasaki and heroshima, leading to the cold war, and the rest, as they say, is history.
needless to say, i did not find any of this terribly comforting, although it was nice to see that los alamos also does work on weather, climate change, and the human genome, as well as trying to fulfill their duty to 'stockpile stewardship,' which sounds like they are trying to stockpile a christian duty. from the bradbury i headed to the historical museum, above, in what used to be the guest cottage of the boys school, and then one of the los alamos homes. it covered much of the same information, with an emphasis, obviously, on the boys' school and the history of los alamos. at the left is a mock nuclear bunker, complete with games from the 50s.

other than the lab, which occupies 40 near town, los alamos is surprisingly...normal. while there is also a branch of the university of new mexico there, a lot of town is much like any other new mexican town. but just when you are feeling comfortable again, you see something like this: a bus stop sign. dork alert: any of you seen eureka, the show on syfy? it's like eureka and los alamos started off the same way--quasi-military, smart people, science--but los alamos reached some semblance of normalcy and eureka did not. but i digress.

of course, i was not going to leave town without technically driving on government land. it was pretty creepy passing the warning sign: 'you are now on u.s. government land, etc.' i decided not to push my luck and didn't head for any of the badge checks, and the road a took, while on government land, offered no views of secret science labs. of course, i did still hit rush hour, and incidentally, i think that more scientists live in espanola than in santa fe based on the traffic flow.

i eventually made my way through santa fe, which was quite a feat on those narrow streets filled with cars and people. i stopped for dinner at a restaurant on the old las vegas highway called the bobcat bite, which has been reviewed by the likes of npr's 'the splendid table.' i sat at the bar, talking with the two people on either side of me--one a local with a masters in art history, working at a gallery in town, and the other a tourist from missouri. i ordered the green chili cheeseburger, and man was it delicious. and gigantic. thus ended a rather long day, and an epic two and a half hours of blogging. tomorrow: i-25 south.