"No one likes us- I don't know why..."*

We started the day with more exploration of El Malpais. We drove up to the top of a sandstone bluff that had a nice view of the lava flows across the valley.



Next stop was La Ventana (the window), a large natural arch; one of only two in New Mexico.



Heh.



Finally, we hiked a bit of the Continental Divide Trail that happened to cross this amazing 3000 year old lava flow. The folds and wrinkles were interesting and very different in nature from the lava we'd seen in California and Arizona.












We are spending the night at Los Alamos, home of the National Laboratory and the Manhattan Project, and at the end of the day spent some time at the Bradbury Science Museum. There were exhibits covering the history of the Manhattan project, as well as current projects at the Lab. Above are replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy.

* Today's blog-title song lyrics are from Randy Newman's Political Science, which came to mind. Its a rather timeless look at America's foreign policy, written in 1972.

Other interesting stuff.... they had a geiger counter with which to test various household items and we got to see just how radioactive our old red fiestaware plates are (which were made with Uranium). Also, we learned that I am a better conductor of electricity than Darrin.



They also had a Cray computer there, which was very nifty. The padded bench held the massive power supply, and the thing had hundreds of circuit boards which are visible, stacked in the center. The cooling system was powerful enough to service 18 homes.


Click me to see where we went.