Socorro, NM.

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click photo to enlarge		 We based in Socorro to visit the Very Large Array (VLA) located just west of Magdalena in Socorro county and the Trinity site. The VLA visitors center has a good video narrated by Jodie Foster and you take a self guided walking tour. It was well worth the drive from Socorro and the city of Magdalena was great for photography. In the town of San Antonio, which is on the way to the Trinity site, there are two restaurants of note... The Owl Bar and Cafe featured on The Travel Channels Burger Land and Manny's Buckhorn Tavern featured on Bobby Flay's Throwdown. In fact they beat Bobby in a throwdown for the best Green Chile Cheeseburger and it was in fact the best one I found in New Mexico.

click photo to enlarge		 The main purpose of this entire trip for Karen was to take an overnight trip on Amtrak and for me was to visit the Trinity site and also find the best Green Chile Cheeseburger in New Mexico. The Trinity site was the location of the first ever detonation of a nuclear weapon. This was a fundamental change in world power and really affects all people world wide. The test site was declared a National Historic Landmark district in 1965, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year. It is open to the pubic only 2 days a year, the first Saturday in April and October. There are a few thousand people who go each day it is open. There are green rocks that can be seen scattered around that are called Trinitite which is formed of desert sand that melted from the explosion and formed radioactive green rocks. They are still radioactive and it is illegal to take them. It was kind of a somber place to visit but I am glad we went. The sky with threatening storms seemed fitting. The bomb detonated was an implosion-design plutonium device and they were not even sure it would work. The first bomb was dropped on Japan only 21 days later and the materials for this were on the way to Tinian Island even before this test took place.

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