When I used to think of New Mexico, barren desert wasteland is what would spring to mind not the state's motto "Land of Enchantment."
I suppose that's what happens when all you ever see comes from driving I-40 over long desolate stretches across states. A trip broken up by gas stations, rest stops and occasionally civilization.
Spending a week in Albuquerque but spending most of our time traveling outside it, even by only a couple of hours was mind changing.
We hunted for petroglyphs more than once only a few minutes from where we were staying.
We dined at over 10,000 ft (the view was amazing).
We spent our only Saturday visiting random places we found ourselves near. On our way to Bandelier National Monument (our only planned outing for the day), Soda Dam Creek was an unexpected formation along the roadside we just had to screech to a stop to look at.
Most of our day was spent checking out the cliff dwellings in Bandelier. Truly amazing living space that will make you appreciate your own home, no matter how big or small.
The coolest part of Bandelier is the Alcove house. With a sign like this, you know it's going to fun.
Surprisingly not as scary as I thought but I will never go down ladders the way Dave chooses to.
A very brief drive from the park found us exploring the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. Fascinating and well designed, the museum was not only an interesting walk through the history of what Los Alamos is most famous for, the Manhattan Project with its Fat Man and Little Boy, but also for current research projects.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory still employs over 24,000 people with a mission to solve national security challenges and takes up 34 square miles near the town.
While driving through a beautiful mountain road on our way home we ran across the 13.7 mile wide Valle Grande Caldera. Unfortunately, it was getting late and there was only a short time left before the park closed. The ranger on duty warned us if we stayed past closing time we would be locked in and expect it to take a few hours before we would rescued. He looked serious about the matter and after a brief discussion of whether or not we could find a way out using the jeep, the miles of fence line suggested we couldn't, we didn't stay long.
As the morning began with us stopping to see a natural formation sitting on the roadside, so did it end. This rather large rock was just sitting there, asking to be looked at and climbed.
And so we did.
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