Full-size replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs dropped on Japan.

Today we ventured forth from Santa Fe again, this time to the nearby town of Los Alamos, which has lots of interesting history around the Manhattan Project and the development of the atom bomb.  Once again it was a gorgeous drive winding through the mountains with amazing views around every corner.  You could see why this remote outpost was a good choice for a secret city.

We started at the history museum, then made our way over to the Bradbury Science Museum.  (Oddly, the former, which was small and simple, charged us $5, while the latter, which was larger and much more elaborate, was free.)  Both were very text-heavy, so even though the information was pretty interesting, eventually we began to get a bit of the dreaded museum life-suck effect.  Fortunately we were able to revive ourselves with a delicious lunch at the noodle house next door.

Los Alamos also had this nice park.

For the afternoon we were back in Santa Fe, shopping in the plaza and visiting Canyon Road, the famous strip of art galleries.  Given the many thousand dollar price tags for the artwork, we contented ourselves with window shopping.  With the lovely

Rock paper scissors sculpture!

architecture and outdoor sculpure displays all along the winding road, it was a very pleasant stroll.  I’m not sure how the 100+ art galleries all manage to stay in business, but the art scene is definitely a point of pride here.

To round out the day, we wandered into the Desert Dogs Brewery & Cidery, which was the perfect place to have a drink or two, enjoy the laid-back ambiance, and play a couple of board games.  Turns out they also had delicious street tacos for dinner.

As previously mentioned, Zoe and I are very directionally challenged.  But we also have a secret ambition to someday compete on The Amazing Race TV show.  We know that navigation will be our downfall, so tonight we challenged ourselves to walk back from the town center to our apartment without consulting Google Maps.  This was not a particularly impressive feat, given that we were covering ground that we’d been over several times over the last few days, but we still had a few moments of indecision.  Fortunately we persevered and arrived back home without incident.