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Between Carrizozo and the White Sands turnoff we passed through Valley of the Fires – what appeared to be a big lava flow, although one that seemed to lack the requisite nearby volcano. Coming back, Maria and I made a snap decision to stop to check this out.

Valley of the Fires actually turned out to be a lot more interesting that the Trinity Site. It is a large area down in a valley where, about 5,000 years ago, lava flowed up to the surface from underground cracks. Why this happened, I don’t know, but it did and now there is a huge lava field.

The really neat thing is that there is a hiking trail out into the lava field, so you get to actually go wander around as well as just look from the viewing points. Very cool, really.

(And yes, I realize that I’m about to subject you to a bunch of shots of black rocks – deal with it).

Entrance

I’ve never seen a national park with entrance rules that were so complex – we actually had to think about this one for a bit before coughing up $5. The strange thing is that there is a manned information center just a little farther inside the park – what would be wrong with just having somebody collect money there?

Incidentally, we decided the $5 was well spent after our visit.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:18:31 by Bill Clinton:
  Congress debated many days over this and it shows that government does work. What’s your problem?

Sierra Blanca

The mountain with the snow on it in the distance is Sierra Blanca. Ruidoso (where we were staying) is located around on the other side of the mountain.

The Lava Field

A view of a tiny bit of the lava field.

The Trail

You can see some of the trail around the lava field in this picture.

Lava Bubbles

Whee – Lava Bubbles!

This is NOT a Yucca

The extremely vertical plant in this picture is a Sotol, NOT a Yucca. Somebody must have Sotol issues, becuase they pointed this out several times.

Multi-colored Lava

Some nice, multi-colored lava (just for the sake of variety)

Lava Crack

An interesting crack in the lava (ok, you have to be there for this to really be interesting).

Don’t Jump!

Maria checking out a larger crack. Some of these were quite deep and completely open – no fences or anything. Kind of strange for a federal park – you would expect lots of warnings or something.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 13:35:08 by Maria:
  …paying the goverment to commit suicide on their property…fun!
• Apr-7-2003 14:56:03 by Kelly:
  So what do you see? Anything of great interest or just more black rock? The hair style is still not very viewable, color is good though.

Cool Plant

I just liked this plant – it had the whole symmetrical thing going really well.

The Trail

The first bit of the trail was nicely paved, but after about 1/8 of a mile it just kind of wandered off into the lava. The only real way to tell you were on the trail was to look for the gravel that some poor soul had to haul out here to fill in some of the cracks.

Semi-dead tree

There were several fairly large trees in varous stages of dying. This is one of the more “alive” specimens.

Another Dead Tree

And here’s another dead tree – this one is doing a better job.

Final Shot

And, for a final shot, here’s a nice, large chunk of lava right on the edge of the desert.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 14:50:50 by Kelly:
  Very cool looking place. I have plan on going by this place on one of my many wonderings.
• Apr-8-2003 19:55:33 by Ross (future college dropout truckdriver):
  Cool Dino Dookie!!

The last stage of the tour (besides the long drive back to Highway 380) was the visit to the farm house where the bomb was actually assembled – about 2 miles away from Ground Zero. The site is an old adobe farm house that has been christened the “McDonald Farmhouse”, although the original owners were actually the “Schmidts”.

Try saying Schmidt House without grinning.

McDonald

This is the McDonald house – all 1700 or so square feet of it. The front door enters into the “Plutonium Assembly Room” – the room that was sealed and then used as a clean room to assemble the core of the bomb.

Comments

• Apr-8-2003 19:47:46 by Ross (future college dropout truckdriver):
  Where is the arch? Shouldn’t it say “Millions and Millions bombed” or something like that?

Windmill

The windmill that was used to pump water into a couple of large tanks. The water wasn’t actually drinkable (too salty) but the tanks are about 5 feet deep and apparently made good swimming pools.

Front Door

This is the front door of the house – and it leads directly into the “clean room”, which explains the signs about wiping your feet.

More of the Door

More of the door – apparently they were serious about clean feet!

Plutonium Assembly Room

This is the sign hanging in the center of the front room.

Barn

The remains of the barn.

I really do wonder what, exactly, they managed to raise out here.

The House Again

Another shot of the house. The view, at least, is good.

Witness Post

This was a strange find – a witness post and a survey marker. I’m not exactly sure why this is out here in the middle of nowhere, but here it is.

Comments

• Apr-8-2003 19:49:40 by Ross (future college dropout truckdriver):
  Dang department of commerce.. they got their grubby little paws into everything.

Survey Marker

And the final shot from the Trinity Visit – a survey marker.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 13:51:59 by Katybeth Miller:
  It’s a permanent marker of the National Spacial Reference System of the National Geodetic Survey, Silly. One of the reasons your GPS works. And I thought you made maps and stuff in a former lifetime.
• Apr-7-2003 15:04:05 by Kelly:
  Yeah what she said. And it is a mouthful. Funny also, Aint that right there map boy.
• Apr-7-2003 21:15:58 by George Ashcroft:
  This is classified information. You are all on our wanted list.

The Trinity Site was actually kind of a bust – there just isn’t much to see. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but we seem to have the idea that something that has been “nuked” should look, well, “nuked“. In reality, the desert looks a bit different, but not anything that would really clue you in to the fact that there was an atomic explosion here – even a small one.

Adding to the surreality was the whole “tourist” aspect of the place: T-Shirt Stands, guys grilling burgers/hot dogs, little carts selling stuff, porta-potties, a huge parking lot, and thousands of people. This is not what I was expecting – and Maria and I agreed that the site would probably have more impact if you visited it when there were no crowds around.

So, enough blabbing – on to the pictures…

Approaching the Trinity Site

This is actually the one place where you can best see that something happened out here. I’m not sure if this is because of the fence around the site, the bulldozing of the trinitite (to cut down radiation apparently), or an effect of the actual explosion, but you can definately see that something changed the landscape out here.

If you look just above the cars on the road you will see a lighter colored smudge extending to the right and left – that’s the site.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 13:25:23 by Maria:
  interesting…i didnt notice that while we were there….

Entrance to the Site

This is the actual entrance to the site. There’s nothing really special except a few “radioactive” signs hung on a big fence.

Distance to…

This was a bit odd – a big sign listing distances to various surrounding cities. Then again, maybe it isn’t that odd – most, if not all, of these places could hear the actual blast and some of them got hit with fallout.

Oh – and the “official” story was that an ammunition bunker blew up – pretty typical for our government, no?

Radiation!

The obligatory “radioactive” warning signs. If you can believe the literature things really aren’t that radioactive anymore. Whatever…

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 14:44:01 by Kelly:
  Personally, I would much rather have a sign 10′x10′. This one is just too puney.

Ground Zero Entrance

The site is actually surrounded by two fences with a road going from the outer fence to the inner one. The inner fence surrounds an area maybe a few hundred yards in diameter, kind of oval shaped. I’m sure there is a good reason for the shape, but I’ve forgotten it.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:11:05 by George Ashcroft:
  Please send me all photos of all the people for our files.

Ground Zero Marker

The bomb was set off on a tower about 200 feet high and this obelisk marks the spot directly under where the bomb went off. There is a tiny bit of one of the legs of the tower left, but apparently everything else was “vaporized” – a term you hear tossed around casually, but don’t often experience.

Maria

A shot of Maria contemplating the ground zero marker.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 13:27:08 by Maria:
  please note that i am NOT the one wearing the hideous camouflage ensemble….
• Apr-7-2003 14:33:04 by Kelly:
  Couldn’t see the most resent hair doo. Don’t be critical of the camoflague. You may very well look lovely in a camo motif.

Jim at Ground Zero

No smart-ass remarks from any of you about this shot!

Tina, look closely – can you tell what I’m holding in my left hand?

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 13:31:35 by Tina:
  Hmmm, I wouldn’t stand next to a huge obelisk and ask someone to notice ‘what I’m holding in my hand.’ Very bad.
• Apr-7-2003 14:39:05 by Kelly:
  For those of us who don’t have a clue. What is in your hand. Do you feel phalic in any way after standing next to this. Any envy of any kind. Just wondering.
• Apr-7-2003 21:12:30 by George Ashcroft:
  Clearly a child pornographer. A felony. We will find you.
• Apr-8-2003 19:42:27 by Ross (future college dropout truckdriver):
  Is that a shrunken kangaroo head in your hand?? AAAHHHHH attack of the aborigine voodoo headhunters!!! Run for your lives!!!

Obelisk Closeup

A closer view of the obelisk.

Marker Plaque

And here’s a readable shot of the plaque on the marker.

Fat Man

The have an example of the Fat Man bomb casing that apparently is rolled out for viewing twice a year.

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 14:28:44 by Kelly:
  Big bomb

Fat Man Sign

Here is the sign explaining the previous photo.

Crater Shed

Apparently most of the crater was dozed to bury the radioactive trinitite, but a bit of it was left and covered with a shed. This is the shed.

Trinitite

And here is some trinitite (what you get when you set off a nuke in the dessert – melted, radioactive sand). Not very impressive, huh?

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:13:20 by George Ashcroft:
  This is a classified area…..

Crater

Bulldozing aside, the actual blast did not crate much of a crater. The sign said that the 200 feet of air cushioned the ground below. However, you can see what little there is of a depression in this photo.

Jumbo

This is the remains of “Jumbo” – a large metal case that the bomb was originally going to be placed inside. The idea was that Jumbo would contain the explosion from the TNT and, if an atomic explosion did not take place, would prevent the plutonium from being spread around.

Jumbo was not used in the test, but was later blown up several times to test various other types of conventional explosives. It now sits, minus it’s ends, outside of Ground Zero.

Cool Fire Truck

This you have to love – a Hummer fire truck!

Slow News Day

Must have been a slow news day…

Assless Wonder Redux

And here is our friend, the Assless Wonder, yet again.

I’ll spare you the details of the 90 mile drive to the Trinity Site from Ruidoso – it’s mostly rocks, tumbleweeds and sand – with the occasional lava flow tossed in for “variety”. However, we had to put up with about 17 miles of driving between US 380 and the actual site.

And there was a traffic jam – even though we were out in the middle of nowhere!

Mountain Scenery

To get to the Trinity Site you have to drive onto the north end of White Sands Missile Range. In fact, you have to drive about 5 miles, stop at the security gate, and then drive another 12 miles. It’s kind of boring, really, but the scenery off to the east is spectacular – especially on an early morning.

I have about 30 shots of various cloud formations (no, you don’t get to see them all) – this is one of the better ones.

More Mountain Scenery

And here is another…

Now that you’ve seen these two you’ve seen them all !

Dead Plants

And here is the obligatory photo of various dead plants. Have you ever noticed that there are lots of plants in the desert – and that they all seem to be dead? What’s up with that – plants obviously need water, quite a bit of it to achieve the size of these (6-10 feet high), so it had to rain sometime, right?

Annoying Photographer

About 3 miles in to the drive we came to the traffic jam at the security gate. After a few minutes of stop-and-go driving (you have to love being stuck in a traffic jam in the desert) the guy in front of us really started to get annoying: He would move his car, hop out with a very large camera, take photos until traffic started to move again, and then hop back in his car.

Now, this really is no big deal, except that he did it about thirty times, removing progressively larger and larger cameras. Maria and I started making snide remarks and we could tell that the couple behind us were doing the same (with some wonderful facial expressions, I might add). Maria dubbed him the “Assless Wonder”.

So, just to make life interesting, we started taking pictures of him – making it very obvious. Unfortunately, he was oblivious to our shennigans, so the desired effect was not had.

Oh well – he certainly did provide some amusement…

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:07:15 by George Ashcroft:
  Get me his license plate photo bigger, we’ll take care of the rest. Your pal, George

The Assless Wonder #2

More of the same. Notice the size of the camera? I’m not sure how he fit it into that little ‘Zuke – and he had bigger ones!

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:08:32 by George Ashcroft:
  Please forward all the photos of this criminal as soon as possible, or call me and I’ll have several agents pick them up.

Obligatory Traffic Shot

And this is the obligatory shot of some traffic – this time at the gate entering White Sands Missile Range. I would have gotten a better shot, but the road never really bothered to curve at any point.

Illegal Photo

We were warned not to take photos of anything except the actual sites we would be visiting. So, of course, I checked for cops (none visible) and proceeded to snap pictures of everything I could see on the way in. This got me about 6 photographs – not much to see in the desert – even one that the government uses to blow things up.

This is the one shot of something “interesting” – a bunch of towers and bunkers off in the distance. Pretty boring, right?

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:09:29 by George Ashcroft:
  Please turn yourself in. Otherwise we will have to come pick you up with the photos.

I have yet to figure out why this happens, but fires just don’t burn worth a damn in Ruidoso. Witness the following:

The Smoke Cloud

No, this is not my bad photography – that’s Smoke! Yes, the damper was open; no, we weren’t chain smoking filterless Lucky Strikes; yes, the doors and windows were open.

The fireplace just would not draw!

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 19:46:41 by mom:
  larry would be proud of you!!

The Culprit

And this is the culprit – yet another worthless fireplace. Now I understand why all the ads for houses/cabins that have gas fireplaces make such a big deal of it.

Oh – and the smoke detectors never went off!

Comments

• Apr-7-2003 21:04:57 by David:
  You can crash anything……