Santa Fe

We started the day in Albuquerque. We visited Petroglyphs National Monument, located in suburban Albuquerque. That is where Trisha posed by these chili bouquets. The monument itself was pretty underwhelming. It consisted of some pecked petroglyphs on the varnished surface of basalt boulders (aged 100-200K). I swore off taking photos of petroglyphs years ago, so I have nothing to show for our visit.



We arrived in Santa Fe at lunch time and located Harry's Roadhouse on the old Las Vegas (New Mexico) highway. It is a Triple D location, so we stopped in. The menu was quite diverse, and everyone enjoyed their meal.



Bubby and Marilyn enjoyed their root beer, and by the way they giggled, you would have thought it was something stronger in the bottles. They shared some eggplant dish that looked really good. I had an amazing grilled cheese, and of course we all had some dessert. Mine was strawberry rhubarb pie with a dollop of ice cream.



We left Santa Fe and drove west toward Los Alamos. We visited Bandelier National Monument just south of Los Alamos. This is a beautiful monument and we really enjoyed out time there. The day was sunny and fair, the monument scrupulously well maintained.



The ruins at Bandelier are partially hewn out of an ashfall volcanic tuff. Bubby and Marilyn enjoyed using the ladders and exploring the dwelling interiors where ever they could.



I took this one for Jake. It was the fattest lizard I have seen in quite awhile. He even posed for a photo.

We left Bandelier about 6:00 PM and stopped in Los Alamos, the site of the completion of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to end the 2nd World War. It is still a national laboratory but the current research emphasis is homeland security. We will definitely bring our participants here in June of 2010. There are several world class museums and the community is beautiful.

On Monday morning, we rose early, were on the road by 7:00 AM, and with the exception of fuel and a lunch stop in Kayenta, AZ, we drove non-stop until we arrived in Cedar City at 6:00 PM. That's a lot of road hours. I am wondering about the wisdom of taking our in-service teachers so far, but hey, I don't make those decisions.

It was great to sleep in our bed last night, although I was at my desk at 2:30 AM. Lots to do today.

Buboppy