This morning brought another hike to explore the badlands, however this time we went rugged up as the morning temperature was 32°F. We spent another couple of hours this time walking across the plateau of the badlands to a couple of lookouts. After our walk, and over breakfast, we decided to devote the remainder of the day to visiting Los Alamos and its Science Museum.

So with breakfast done we headed south along Highway 550 to the town of Cuba where we got onto a scenic road (numbered 126) into the mountains west of Los Alamos. This was a really delightful drive through wonderfully scenic forests, lots of camping spots, and even the gravel bits of the road were in pretty good condition. From 126 we eventually found NM highway 4 and wound our way into Los Alamos.

Over the past year we have both read a book called The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes ((or more accurately listen to the audio book version) and from this we had an interest in seeing Los Alamos and seeing what the museum had to say about the towns role in the development of the bomb. The displays and couple of video presentations were interesting, but perhaps the most interesting part of the museum visit was seeing photos of the key scientists that we had read about. The life sized statues of General Grove (the military and administration leader of the entire Manhattan project) and Robert Oppenheimer the scientific leader seemed to capture the contrast in personalities that the book described. A worthwhile visit.

From Los Alamos we headed past Santa Fe to a road side truck inspection stop on I25.