Up early sort of and off to the Valles Caldera, a recent NPS National Monument. This is a stunning place with a 14 mile long stretch of some of the most fertile grazing land in NM. An active ranch until about 2000 it became part of the NPS a very few years later. Still under development but you don’t need to wait for beautiful views, wildlife viewing, miles and miles of hiking trails and much more. We arrived here by a back road up the mountains that provided gorgeous scenery. After the park, we took another small road to the back side of Los Alamos. Entrance by showing your ID! We walked a bit of the town, saw Bathtub row where the lead scientists lived, some of the town and a few buildings before heading down to Santa Fe. We enjoyed a bit of the main plaza and stumbled into another neat concert (like the one at the Orkney Islands last May). The Santa Fe Symphony Chorus and Chamber Orchestra doing a free concert in the St Francis of Assisi Cathedral. Lovely. Dinner was at the Sawmill - a food court. Jill and I split a very good puttanesca pasta. Spike is doing a good job on the food front, still no ice cream - his job is hanging by a thread.
Tomorrow after breakfast as the Pueblo Cultural Center we are off to Williams, Arizona. Stay tuned!
A small portion of the caldera. The barn c 1900 was used for sheep when this area grazed 30,000 of them before WWII.
Fan of Longmier? This is the house on the show, built about 1918 and used until 2003.
Another of the historic ranch houses, this one painted red, for Ruby, the housekeeper
Lots of these guys and a treat to watch.
This is the site of the main labs of the Manhattan Project, now a park
Wonderful concert in Santa Fe at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi.
Oldest house in the US. Santa Fe, New Mexico