Albuquerque, NM

Back from a vacation...GAH get it!!! Because this is a travel writing blog???

I'll stick to dorkiness compared to humor.

Last month (and next week too for that matter) Albuquerque became our destination for work travel. It was a brutal schedule, travel one day, meeting one WHOLE day, and travel back, but I worked in a couple of really cool sites out there.

When I found out I was going out there, I found the Museum of Nuclear Science and History and my attention was held hostage on the idea of going there. Until Friday, we hadn't done much as a group outside of going to Old City, which had this great old Mission which currently serves as a convent. From a historian perspective, it was great to see a building that spanned three centuries still used for its (somewhat intended) use. We had dinner in this great old place, nice three food thick walls, and a tree literally growing in the middle of the dining room. Literally "How about some sopatilla's to finish out your meal? OH I just RAN INTO THAT TREE!" Ok, so it was actually in a corner, but the food wasn't that great, atmosphere, great, sangria, some of the best I've had.

There in was our time in old city. No more fun til Friday :(.

First stop Friday was the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, which met expectations but didn't exactly exceed them. I think the problem became that so much of it was so sciency it was well beyond my area of expertise. So noted...study up before hitting up such a niche museum. However, that was only about half of the museum. The other half of the museum led through a standard history of nuclear development. It incorporated the countries that had nuclear programs, and created a sense of urgency that if we didn't make "the bomb" someone else with much more sinister intents would have done it first.

The museum did a fine job of recreating the lives of those military men that developed the weapon, which personal lives and professional lives intermingled in this forever top-secret lifestyle. Every aspect of live, including child birth, had some small aspect of the seriousness of nuclear science. Working where I work, and being where I've been (after all, I am a History Geek) I've seen my fair share of shells and bombs, but seeing these nuclear bombs, in cast version, for the first time enabled me to understand the sheer mass of power behind the relatively small size of the bombs. The museum beautifully segues into the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, covering the major bases of Nuclear History.

There are a lot of changes going on in the museum, and you actually have the opportunity to walk around the action. For lack of a better phrase they seem to be making a parking lot of old airplanes. Because it is in the building phases, you can get right under the airplane, and get closer than I've ever gotten to a plane.

Next up was Petroglyph National Park across the city. Just to set the stage, this History Geek moonlighter, was at slightly less than a mile above sea level, and had a slightly crazy night before. When I went to the visitor center and they told me of my options for getting around (everything was very clearly marked on the roads) and I settled on the shortest walk and maybe the second walk if time allowed. The first walk was a joke, and it was done in less than five minutes. So I walked around and went to the second walk.

Bad. Idea.

Probably the combination of a slight hangover and the thin air was not good for very mild climbing, I could have spent hours out there but poor decisions the night before made that a not too intelligent option. None the less, the only thing I had on my plate the rest of the day was making sure I got to the airport and close to the right gate. Taking pictures up on Petroglyph was absolutely fantastic and I hope to get back up there.

Next up on my ABQ to visit is probably some of the Indian museums, however this next trip will be more complicated then the last. But I'm not done going out there. There's much more of the wild west for this geek to discover.