Jemez Mountains Road Trip ~ The Drive Home

 

Thankfully our drive home was less eventful, though it did start off with one of the other boy scout parents parking behind me at the campground, the night before. He ended up blocking me in the next morning, on a steep hill no less, when he discovered that his battery was dead. Thankfully there we’re some strong boy scouts to help push it out of the way, so we could escape and get down the road. It was also nice to not be the last folks at the campsite. Usually it seems I am always the last to get all our stuff put away and get on the road.

But not this time. We had big plans to drive an alternative way home, going north towards Los Alamos and then driving northeast through Santa Fe, instead of driving south though Bernalillo and Albuquerque. There were several Letterboxes we wanted to search for, some short hikes we wanted to try and I wanted to show my kidlets Los Alamos, the birthplace of the Atomic Bomb.

We would still be driving in the beautiful Jemez Mountains, in fact, directly across them. Our first stop was to find a letterbox near the Valles Caldera, above 10,500 ft elevation.

The highest peak in the Jemez is  11,300 ft high. We quickly located the letterbox and took some photos of the stunning scenery, including the Valles Caldera, a collapsed volcanic crater over 12 miles wide.

This entire 89,000 acre area is a beautiful sanctuary operated and protected by The Valles Caldera National Preserve. The entire Jemez Mountains are dotted with many campgrounds and covered with hiking trails and miles of horse friendly trails just begging to be explored.

Not long after we left the Valles Caldera, we arrived at the town of Los Alamos, NM., home of Los Alamos National Laboratory and The Manhattan Project, birthplace of the Atomic Bomb, that ended World War II.

(There’s a very cool video feed on that site about the entire Jemez Mountain region, including this fascinating town, as well as our next stop: The Black Hole, where we found a letterbox)

The owner of The Black Hole,  Ed Grothus, was a former technician at Los Alamos Laboratory, whose work contributed to the creation of bombs 30 times smaller and 30 times more powerful than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He once sent some canned “organic plutonium” to President Clinton.

The Secret Service didn’t like that very much. Because, you know, plutonium will kill you.

Of course, it was just plain old canned mushroom soup, but with a cleverly made label showing a mushroom cloud on the front.

The Secret Service and the FBI made a personal visit to The Black Hole for that little prank.

The Black Hole of Los Alamos is a recycler of "nuclear waste,"  and has the world's most diverse stock of used scientific equipment, electronics, lab supplies, nuclear by-products, surplus items and materials. We have over 17,000 square feet of pre-owned test equipment and laboratory supplies. The Black Hole has provided materials to over 500 Universities and Research Institutions around the world as well as technical props for 4 major motion pictures.

If you think historical, scientifically significant old junk is fascinating, go check out THIS SITE from a person who worked at The Black Hole as a teenager many years ago (lots of cool photos and info about many if the items inside The Black Hole)

Check out THIS SITE to learn more about the Black Hole and watch a video of how it was created, and what this “Church”, next door is all about, too. Cool stuff!

We next ate some lunch in downtown Los Alamos and I saw this building across the parking lot. The initials are the same as mine and my hubby’s. Cute!

Then we had one more letterbox to look for on a beautiful hiking trail in the middle of town, down into a private little canyon.

We thoroughly enjoyed this lovely canyon and hike and could have lingered there, exploring for hours.

  

But we had to get back on the road and drive home before it got too late.

(Jax is going for the Wild Mountain Man look in this photo)

But we’ll be back to explore the Jemez Mountains again soon.

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And the best part about coming home?

Going up to Apache’s paddock and watching her trot all the way down the hill to me, nickering. This was her first time to ever greet me this way. I think she might have missed me a little and was happy to see me!

  

She definitely couldn’t wait to shower me with hello kisses! (That’s her goofy,  “Come-Here-I-Love-You’ face)

 

Apache got my arm sopping wet, even before I gave her an apple. (After she ate the apple, her affectionate slobbers were mixed with frothy apple juice. eww!)

 

It’s great to be loved by a horse.