WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18 NUCLEAR MUSEUM THEN NATURAL HISTORY,

Charlie was done with presentations yesterday.  Today he just had to attend meetings and discuss.....

I decided to go to the National Nuclear Museum.  It's a few miles past the airport.  I've been using my Google maps directions on my phone.  What a great app.  A lady talks me through my more doubt-filled moments.  I had, for no good reason decided to drive along Central Avenue rather than take the freeway.  When I seemed to be running out of Albuquerque, I pulled onto a small street.  The Google lady talked me back to the correct streets (I had just given up too soon), and I "found" the museum.

The museum was the history of the atomic bombs done in a series of displays.  Really a fascinating place.  A World War II section talked about the German's attempt to get the bomb.  How we found out about what they were doing, and succeeded.  There was another display about early studies about radioactive materials from Beckerel to Einstein.  I found out that if you really want to fission material you need radioactive material with an even number of protons and an odd number of neutrons.  Hence U-235 works well, but U-238 isn't so good.  More displays about bombing Japan, and the awful consequences.  A copy of Little Boy and Fat Man - the bombs that were used. The anti-nuclear stuff in the 60s showed up too.  One of the more interesting/odd pieces there was a huge yard filled with old missiles.  Titans, Jupiters, Thors, and some military planes.  I was fascinated by the Titan, ICBM - the one that had been stored in silos.  There is was - odd.

Nuclear Museum from outside

Little Boy and Fat Man copies

The Titan ICBM  - just laying there

After the nuclear museum, my Google friend helped me get back to the Natural History museum.  I expected that to be the same old, same old...  Actually there was a huge display about the history of computers that was great!  They had a Uniac, and lots of interactive displays about personal computers from the old toggle switch to the original Mac.  Given that New Mexico has lots of geology and paleontology, there was also lots of great dinosaur displays as well.  My favorite was Stan, a T-Rex that had died of old age, but had had his neck broken and been bitten in the head earlier in his life.

Charlie and I decided we'd walk to a local restaurant for dinner.  The problem... no one uses downtown Albuquerque by foot, except the local bums.  It was creepy.  We reached the restaurant, but it was closed.  Bah.  We walked back, and drove back to Cervantes for another New Mexican dinner.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, AIR FORCE MEETING AND MUSEUMS

Charlie and I had breakfast in the morning.  We walked over to the convention center, a block from the hotel, and put up his poster for the meeting.  I walked back to the hotel and hung around until museums open.  Below is a photo from our room - the mountains in the distance are the Sandia range

My first museum was the Museum of New Mexico History and sculpture garden.  The museum is a lovely, modern building.  There was a great exhibit of Crystal - the guy who "wrapped up" buildings, bridges, and sculptures.  He also put umbrellas up along the highway to the Tejon pass and in Japan at the same time.  Both of those projects unfortunately ended in the death of people who were whacked with blown over huge umbrellas.  Too bad - they were very nifty looking.  After I wandered around the Crystal exhibit, an announcement stated that there would be a tour of the sculpture garden.  I joined it, and was delighted.  What a great exhibit.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The main entrance of the museum

Supposed to be a wolf - but clearly a coyote

Cowboy and his horse looking miserable 

I wandered the museum a bit more and then had lunch at the cafe inside the museum.  After lunch I went to the Pueblo Native American Museum.  There was a fascinating room filled with various items from the Indian Schools - one as far away as Carlisle California.  I also found out who Lummis was.  There is the Southwest Indian museum in LA which is also called the Lummis house.  It turned out he was a reporter who complained about the head of the Indian Schools - a military man named Pratt who was awful.  One of his quotes was that he had to" remove the Indian from the children and leave the human".  In the basement of the museum was a great exhibit of Pueblo pottery.

Back to the hotel until Charlie finished.  About 5 we drove to the tram which goes up to the top of Sandia Peak, 10,500 feet up.  It's the longest tram in the world.  It was about 90° at the base of the tram and about 64° and windy at the top.  We, smart us, brought windbreakers so we wouldn't be too cold.   After a zillion photos (see a few below) we had dinner at High Finance a restaurant at the top of the tram.  A beautiful view, and a spectacularly good dinner!  Back down on the tram, back to the hotel, then sleep.

The tram coming to the station

A bunny getting some water below the tram

Up we go

The trams are counterbalanced - here's the one coming the other way

There's the top

Charlie at the top

Me at the top

The Rio Grande Valley and Albuquerque

MONDAY, JUNE 16 CHARLIE AT MEETING - ME IN OLD TOWN

Charlie had to be at his meeting near the airport at 8 AM.  He also told Jon (a former post-doc working with him for this meeting) that we'd get him at his hotel and take him to the meeting site.  Kind of early, but all went well.

Once I got myself together, I left the hotel at 9 and drove to Old Town Albuquerque.  I found parking easily.  My only problem was that most of the shops in Old Town didn't begin to open until 9:30 or 10. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular.  I did see beautiful pottery.  I'll save that search for a trip through the pueblo reservations on some future trip.  I ultimately found a lovely malachite ring - nice when it was a surprise. It was a fun wander.  Only a few of the shops were really filled with piles of junk.  Most of the merchandise was interesting.  I did find some fantastic lemonade, and a had a great salad lunch.  Some photos from Old Town before most of the shops were open are below

Back to the hotel for a rest.  At 5 got Charlie from his meeting by the airport.  We drove to a New Mexican restaurant called Cervantes on the airport side of town.  Back to the hotel and sleep.

SUNDAY, JUNE 15, TO ALBUQUERQUE

We had two flights to get to Albuquerque.  The first was from LA to Denver.  That flight was incredibly smooth.  We even got to Denver 20 minutes early.  Our seat-mate on that flight was a 6'10" guy on his way to try out for several different basketball teams in the Denver area.  I was impressed that he was able to sit in an Economy Plus seat and not break his knee caps- he fit.  We landed at gate 23.  Our next flight to Albuquerque was to take off from gate 83 an hour later.  Good grief.  Unfortunately, we had more time than we first thought.  Something was wrong with the plane.  The umbilical - a huge electrical cord was disconnected while they brought in various elements to glue the computer/electrical system together.  Then they tried to reconnect the umbilical, then disconnect it again.  None worked.  Our pilot sat with us complaining that if he hadn't landed his previous flight a half hour earlier than expected, he wouldn't be stuck with us.  He called for a back up plane, which appeared three hours later.  Those of us waiting for the flight had an United App that would ping when a new flight time was announced.  It got to be like a clock.  Every twenty minutes our cell phones would ping/toll.

Once we got the new plane - the rest of the evening was easy.  We landed in Albuquerque at 7.  Our suitcases showed up - got our car - and easily found the Doubletree Hotel in central Albuquerque.  One of the three tall buildings in the city center.

Good grief - almost a year since my last post!

I just noticed my last post was August last year.  I have a few photos to show you - of the grandchildren variety.  Charlie and I are in Albuquerque, and I'll have some New Mexico photos too. The last year of teaching has been intense, but good.  That really is my last year, since I retired in June.  More time for travel, blogging, and miscellaneous other hobbies long-since neglected.  Until some photos and more posts......

Loooong road home

At the moment Charlie and I are sitting in Panama City for the second of our two 5-hour breaks between flights.  Gak!  I guess it's faster than an old sailing ship - almost.  We left Easter Island yesterday and will get to LA tonight at 5something or other.  At least we found a comfortable lounge to hang around.  I'll post my last few photos from Friday mornings walk.
Until then....

AUG 15 - OUR LAST TOUR DAY HERE.

We started our day with a new tour guide, Hugo.  He's more experienced than the extremely young John, but a bit more ...... mystical.  I'll explain later.

We had seen most of the major tourist sites on the island, so today was a brush up on details.  Hugo, also a Rapa Nui native, was full of details.

The platforms that had fallen Moai still contained the bones of the people that the Moai represented.  The people in the north, near the quarry, were the builders of the Moai.  The people of the south paid in various goods to have the Moai built.  After a time, when it became apparent that the northerners were becoming Moai building slaves, they quit building them.

In the distance is a platform with a few topknots scattered about.  All the Moai were broken, weathered, and buried.

It was cool and misty here today.  Fallen Moai and a rainbow set the scene.

The statue above is supposed to be a Moai of a young boy. He was supposed to be able to heal people. People would come and he could help heal them.  We're not sure how he achieved this.

Most of the platforms had crematorium next to them.  The style of the platforms and the crematorium were different from tribe to tribe.  Charlie and I originally thought there were only a few tribes.  We were incorrect.  There were apparently as many at 54 of them.  Each group must have been very small. Each with their own platforms, Moai, and all.  When the war broke out amongst the tribes, neighbor was literally fighting with neighbor.

The house in the photo above is in the style of the canoe house that the native Rapa Nui people constructed from stone and palm fronds.

The photo above is the local (near our hotel) boat dock.  There is no wharf in town, and there isn't a port.  Somehow ten or more cruise ships show up in the summer with more than 2000 people on each of them.  People are let off the boats in groups of 400-500, they see very little, and are brought back to the boat.  It takes two days to get everyone on board to see what little they can.  Oil is brought to the island by a ship that has to be more-or-less dry docked to keep it from swinging around to much in the tide.  Then divers attach pipes from under the water to a container on shore.  It takes four days to empty the oil ship.

We went to a museum, but my camera ran out of battery power at the time, so no photos.  It was interesting, though.

The photo above is another astronomical Moai.  He is supposed to have been a great island astronomer.  Hugo explained that on June 21st the sun is over his head for 10 minutes.  I'm not entirely sure what he meant - the mysticism began.

The northern shore of Rapa Nui.

I'm standing next to a topknot.  The curved surface was the portion that was stuck on top of the Moai's head, and balanced there.

Hugo's most interesting stories were about himself.  He came from one of the northern tribes and was raised by his great-grandma.  She build a stone house with a tar roof by herself (good grief).  She made an attempt to sell it when she left, but it's been left standing.  It is in a fishing area, and the local dock is seen in the photo above.

We've been seeing lots of petroglyphs but the octopus above is my favorite, and the easiest photo to see.

At the end of the day we went back to the 15 Moai that have been reconstructed.  Horses were grazing all over the area.  Since bones, belongings, and many other things are buried in the platforms, the horses hoofs tend to smash the stones, so Hugo chased them away.

To the right of the fallen Moai is the road that he was dragged on to get to a platform that was no more than 80 m from where we were standing.  Hugo's guess is that once he toppled over, he was shoved to the side of the road.  Months of work down the drain, and so close to the end of the road.  Hugo told us how the scientists think the Moai were moved.  The legend of the natives is that they "thought" them into place. hmmmmm  - or better - sang them into place - I guess I'm just not mystical. 

Tomorrow we begin our three flights home.  We leave here around 1 PM Friday and get home 4:30 or so on Saturday.