“The
universe is a pretty big place. If it’s
just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
Carl Sagan, “Contact”
Carol
writes: As
the calendar page flipped over to April, we were looking forward to spending
four days camping in New Mexico at the Kiva
RV Park and Horse Hotel
with our Las Cruces friends Barb and Jim.
Yes, this small family-run campground, along a
very deserted stretch of I-25 south of Albuquerque, offers horse lovers a place
to board their horses while they camp.
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| Photo courtesy of Barb |
The entire campground was filled with chirping
sounds of hundreds of black birds throughout the trees bordering each
campsite.
EARLY HISTORY
We arrived a day ahead of Barb and Jim, so we
decided to take a drive to the central grasslands east of the interstate to
visit the Abó Ruins site of the Salinas Pueblo Missions.
Over 300 years ago, a community of pueblo Indians
lived at Abó where they had developed an agricultural society. With the arrival of Spanish explorers in the
late 1500s, and soon followed by the arrival of Franciscan priests from Spain, the
Anasazi religious culture began to disappear as a result of massive conversions
to Catholicism.
The remains of a 17th century multistory
mission church integrated into the remains of a pueblo-dweller community,
including its kiva, was well represented at
Abó.
This snapshot of archeological
remains in the Salinas Valley perfectly illustrated a unique time in early New
Mexico history when a cultural mix occurred between the pueblo dwellers and the
late 16th century Spanish Christian explorers.
THE PROFOUND
A visit to the Very Large Array, the world’s most
powerful radio astronomy observatory, had been on our bucket list for quite a
long time. Since the Kiva Horse Motel was only 70 miles away, and
we had gloriously clear blue New Mexico skies, we jumped at the opportunity.
This radio astronomy observatory consists of 27 giant
dish antennas that are aimed day and night out into the universe surrounding our
planet for the purpose of collecting radio waves traveling through the vastness of space.
These magnificent brilliant-white dishes are 82
feet in diameter and, depending on the study, are arranged in various
configurations by means of movement on a transporter along railroad tracks.
The radio data from each telescope is combined and
the numbers crunched by a state-of-the-art supercomputer to create a better
image.
This mind-boggling observatory was an incredibly
beautiful sight to behold in its chosen location in a vast rural desert with miles
and miles of flat space surrounded by mountains in the distance. The entire telescope array actually rotated simultaneously
several times while we were there, and once nearly completed a revolution! One can only wonder what source of invisible
radio waves from outer space had grabbed its attention...
The talented scientists who work at the VLA are on the cutting edge of advancing our knowledge of the universe, from its creation in the ancient past to what may lie in the future. It doesn’t get more profound than that…
THE UNIMAGINABLE
Many months earlier in our travels at White Sands
Missile Range we had learned that Trinity Site, ground zero for the detonation of
the first atomic bomb in July 1945, was open to the public only two days a
year—the first Saturdays in April and October.
Since we had planned to arrive in Colorado Springs in mid-April, the Trinity
Site schedule coincided nicely with ours.
Barb and Jim had been to Trinity Site once before, but they were game to
share a weekend of camping with us at the Horse Motel. So, we broke out the cards, the marbles and
our custom-made Carbles board and had several great games together.
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While Barb stayed back at camp to sit with the
pups, Jim accompanied us early Saturday morning as we headed out to Trinity
Site.
Our first destination was to the McDonald Ranch
House,
a modest stucco home with a tin roof where many of
the scientists who designed the atomic bomb lived and worked. The master bedroom was turned into a clean
room for assembly of the bomb core.
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The other rooms were poignant in their simplicity.
This thick-walled cement tank served double duty
as a water reservoir and also as a swimming pool for much-needed relaxation.
Ground zero at Trinity Site was marked by a simple
stone obelisk made out of lava rocks.
This display of “trinitite” (a light green glass-like
substance formed out of grains of sand that have been fused by the intense heat of the blast) showed
just how powerful the plutonium explosion was.
During his time at sea with the Navy, Al recalled solemn
visits to Japanese memorial sites in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Al’s
sea days had also taken him to the island of Tinian in the Marianas, the
launching point for delivery of both atomic bombs. Somehow
the journey seemed complete with our visit to McDonald Ranch House where the
bomb was assembled and, finally, to ground zero where nuclear bomb possibilities
were born and... in the wrong hands... have been a threat to human existence ever
since.
“Two
things are infinite: the universe and
human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein
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