New Mexico - Land of Enchantment

Leaving Colorado and our friends, Buck and I knew we would have to re-adjust to our two-night travel-schedule to meet all expectations to return home by August 1.  

These tin Mexican hombres welcomed us to the KOA

True to form, we stayed two nights at Raton, NM, just over the state line from Colorado.  Turns out that our son, Jason Walker, had camped at the Raton KOA, back in the 1990s on his way to work for the summer at the Boy Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico.  He told us about visiting the Capulin Volcano and recommended that we go there.  Guess what!  It’s a national monument! So here we go. 

The Capulin volcano erupted into existence 60,000 years ago.  Firework-like flames of superheated lava spewed high in the sky, solidified, and dropped back to Earth.  The falling debris accumulated around the vent, forming a cinder cone volcano.  We visited the visitor center, cancelled the stamp, and drove up as far as possible at the volcano.  Some people continued to climb the volcano using steps built along the sides.  Buck and I parked, watched,and returned to the bottom of the volcano.  Beautiful views were available as we left.  We noticed cracks and crevasses as we descended.  The volcano is not finished yet, we determined.  But no one knows when more eruptions will occur.  Maybe 60,000 years from now, it will.

By July 17 we were headed to Albuquerque where we stayed for three nights, July 17 – 19.  There we chased a stamp to Bandelier National Monument in Alamos, NM, where we learned that it is best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and several thousand ancestral Pueblo dwellings.  Bandelier also includes more than 23,000 acres of designated wilderness.  The best-known archeological sites in Frijoles Canyon were inhabited from the 1100s into the mid – 1500s.  

Bandelier National Monument in Alamos, NM

The Manhattan Project National Historic Park in Los Alamos tells the story of the people, events, science, and engineering that led to the creation of the atomic bomb, which helped end World war II.  Over 6,000 scientists and support personnel worked at this location in on a remote mesa to design and build the atomic bombs.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park is one of the nation’s newest national parks.  Established in November 2015, the park preserves portions of the World War II-era sites where the United States developed the world’s first atomic weapons. 

Three locations are shown on the exhibit map of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park:  Hanford, Washington; Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  

Fort Union National Monument, at Watrous, NM is located along the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail.  This military post and quartermaster depot operated from 1851 to 1891, serving as the largest military installation on the Southwestern frontier.  Today, Fort Union NM continues to inspire the imagination about the American frontier. 

New Mexico is filled with national parks and national monuments.  We enjoyed our stay in this state.