Vandrea Does America: Day 144 (Wednesday 12/12/12)- Bandlier Monument, NM

Since New Mexico is known for making the best sopapillas we were surprised to have to go out of our way to find some. After dining out several times and only finding sopapilla mix at Walmart, we finally got some for breakfast at a place that claims to be "where more political decisions are made than the capital." If so, NM politicians are extremely old. Also, apparently having all you can eat dessert for breakfast is very unusual here. So much so that by the time we left the staff had dubbed us the "Sopapilla Kids." Like I said, everybody was really old.

Next we drove to the Bandlier National Monument which we consider one of the top ruin sites we have seen. Having recently explored a number of ancestral puebloan ruins this location was significant for several reasons-the extensive amount of ruins, their accessibility and, for us, seeing a new style of ancient housing.

Bandlier was occupied by different groups over many centuries, leading to the construction of several different types of living spaces- stone villages, cliff top residences and cavetes (small caves carved into the rock face). Ladders abound in the park allowing you to explore several cavetes as well as a cliff top spot. Most of the climbs are easy enough, except for the last, which led us through multiple frozen creek crossings and a four ladder climb to reach the summit. The high perched ruins weren't my favorite, but the view was incredible.

Following our cave explorations we went to the Nuclear Science museum in Los Alamos. Home to the Manhattan project, the town and it's secret mission were established to beat the Germans in developing a nuclear bomb during World War II. The U.S. victory in nuclear science led to the controversial bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Critics of the bombings (who were allowed to put up their own display) claim that we had already won the war and were just being monstrously spiteful by using the weapons we had worked so hard on developing. The one thing that is obvious to all-the nuclear arms race has forever changed the world. The scientists in Los Alamos now work on decreasing the worlds arsenal of nuclear weapons.