The SAIL project that I worked on at RMBL in Crested Butte will be moving on to Tasmania. I was not selected to go (a huge surprise and sore subject that hurts too much to really write about), but in short. They needed to take 2 people to Tasmania out of the 4 of us. I was the site lead, had turned the project around to being successful when I arrived and according to the top guy from our client (the DOE), the SAIL campaign had been the most successful campaign in a remote place after I took over. I was given an award. I of course was the most senior (in my opinion worked the hardest), etc, etc. So it was a huge surprise when I wasn't selected. Michael, my boss, told me the reason I wasn't selected was because he thought I would have a hard time leaving Crested Butte (I had to remind him I've done fine away from the CO mountains having lived 4 years in Gainesville, 5 seasons in McMurdo, a season in Greenland, and a year in Phoenix). And he was worried b/c Elisha and I took a while to make a decision...which in my opinion means that when we do make our decision (which we did say yes to Tasmania) that b/c we carefully thought about it and went over the pros and cons, that our decision would be solid and final.
Anyways, all the instruments and containers were shipped to the Los Alamos National Lab to be recalibrated and prepped for Tasmania, so I 'moved' to Los Alamos for 6 weeks to help with that. The Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) is pretty interesting. For those that don't know, that's where the atomic bomb was developed and where nuclear research and development still occurs. So it is very high security and we had to have special badges and all this other stuff, even though our work is not of national security concern nor classified. It was also interesting b/c the movie Oppenheimer had just come out.
The work at LANL was mostly outdoors. It's at relatively high elevation, but still quite hot when the sun is out.
For most of my time there, I actually stayed down in Nambe a Native American Pueblo at a really cool casita on a small ranch. After work I mountain biked pretty much every day until dark (there are lots of trails in the Los Alamos areas). For my last couple weeks I stayed at a modern duplex place in White Rock, which was much closer to LANL. It had 2 rooms that could be rented, but I was the only one there the whole time, which was nice as the commute was pretty long from Nambe.
The Nambe casita was so great! It was located on a Pueblo (I can't remember what kind of Native American tribe). It was run by Bonnie and her husband Ramos (Bonnie is white, but her husband is Native American). The casita was a small adobe style building with a nice bed and small kitchen with a table. It didn't have air conditioning, which was fine b/c the adobe does a good job of keeping it cool until you open the windows at night. On the little ranch they had several goats, a couple of horses, some dogs, and lots of chickens. They also had a large garden and small orchard. Bonnie was constantly supplying me with fresh goat cheese and goat milk from her goats as well as honey, jam, and other produce from her garden. There were lots of grapes growing around my place that they would make wine out of, but the grapes also tasted great. And Bonnie of course gave me fresh eggs almost daily. Bonnie had built a little greenhouse in the animal yard that is kept warm by adobe and water that flows through (which she has fish in it). They also had another round style building that they gave me access to that had a hammock, a sweat lodge sauna Bonnie had made and is also Bonnie's art studio.
Bonnie was very interesting. Her dad was a ranger at the Grand Canyon and another national monument in the Southwest. She was an emergency first responder in an ambulance for many years and was Santa Fe's first female fire chief. After a while, the emergencies became too stressful, but she remembered, the emergencies she most liked was delivering babies, so she eventually became a midwife. But even there the stress was a lot and the tragedy of occasional babies dying caused her to focus full-time on her artwork. She paints, and her paintings are really good! She's a definite hippy and is just incredibly sweet
The drive from Los Alamos to Crested Butte is surprisingly not that long (5 hours) and goes through beautiful and empty landscapes, so it's fairly enjoyable. During my time there, I did try to go home a couple times to see Elisha (and Sue) and Elisha came out as well.
Here's sort of a quick journal of my time in Los Alamos:
8/3
Checked into the lab and went through all the security stuff. That evening I biked some cool trails around hoodoo like features near Nambe
8/4
After work, I biked one of the famous loop trails around Los Alamos, Guaje Ridge. It was pretty awesome, though it did have a lot of the New Mexican Locust (which is a very scratchy plant). After the ride, I enjoyed the concert free outdoor concert series that they have.
8/5
I biked a sweet trail, Winsor Trail, that goes from near Nambe (Pojoaque) all the way up to Ski Santa Fe. I gets up into really nice forest and had lots and lots of stream crossings.
8/6
I drove to Red River to bike the East Fork Lost Lake loop trail, which was really amazing, and felt more like Colorado (there were wildflowers and even some Columbines). In the middle of the loop I hiked up to another lake, Horseshoe Lake, and from there, I hiked up to Wheeler Peak at 13,167 feet, New Mexico's highest peak. I did this all in my bike cleats, haha. On the way, I saw lots of bighorn sheep with their lambs, and got really close to them. While on the summit, I watched the smoke plume of a wildfire just starting to get big. After the peak climb, I biked by Lost Lake before heading back down to Red River. At Red River, I got a burger and shake. Red River is an interesting town. In a beautiful location, with a tiny ski hill and with a very small-town Texas-style feel complete with saloons and bbq places.
8/11-13
I came back to Colorado as Sue was visiting. We did some fun things, including rafting down the Gunnison river by Gunnison, which was more wild than we had expected. I also did a couple big bike rides amongst the flowers over in the Cement Creek area.
8/16
Linnah, a really good friend from McMurdo who lives near Taos, took me out to a famous New Mexican restaurant near my place. It was really good to see her!
8/17
Did some nice bike riding up at Pajarito Ski Resort above Los Alamos. I would do several bike rides on the trails up there during my time in Los Alamos.
8/18-8/20
I visited my parents in Pagosa Springs (Colo) as they were staying at Aunt Hope's timeshare. We ate some good food, and went on a hike. I also did some mountain biking in the area, including at a really fun area where I did a 39 miler. Oh, and the Colorado sweet corn and Palisade peaches are getting really good and tasty!
8/20-25 ish
My parents visited. They came checked out the casita. And we also went to the Los Alamos museum. I was working so they did some other things in the area such as Bandalier NM and visited Santa Fe. We also went to the really nice New Mexican restaurant that Linnah had taken me to.
8/24-8/27
Elisha came down to visit. The first night that she got in, we went and visited my parents briefly. On her first full day we went to Bandalier National Monument where we visited the Native American cliff houses and ruins and took a hike. We went to lunch at a yummy dumpling place. We had hoped to go to the summer concert series, but it was lightninged out, so we went to the bar that is in the supermarket that is known for its really cheap tap beers. It's kind of a fun thing to do.
The next day we went to Santa Fe where we went to the famous farmer's market. We then did a fun mountain bike trail before going to a fancy Japanese restaurant for a small dish meal type thing up in the mountains outside of Santa Fe. It's really cool b/c it is set-up just like a place in Japan with fountains and pools and pagodas. Almost feels like your in Japan, including when you go to the bathroom and they toilets they have are the fancy electronic Japanese toilets with all the sprays and such. In the evening we went to a rooftop bar in Santa Fe before going home and we also explored around Santa Fe's old downtown a bit.
On Sunday, Elisha explored around Santa Fe while I did a fun mtn bike ride in the area. We then met up for lunch and then we rode the Winsor trail together, though just the downhill way (we did a car shuttle) so that Elisha would like it more (haha). We went out to eat at a Ramen place in Santa Fe and got some ice cream.
8/29
Did a really cool mountain bike ride outside of Los Alamos in a wild rivers scenic area near to Valles Caldera. The river and canyon was beautiful as was the trail alongside the river. Got a little lost on the way back, had to hide from some lightning, saw lots of elk, and finished in the dark. With the days getting shorter, a common theme for afterwork rides was finishing in the dark.
8/31
Got really close to a bear (maybe even chased it a bit on my bike) on the trails within Los Alamos
9/1-9/4
Drove back to Crested Butte for Labor Day. I did a long (51.07) mile mtn bike ride that leaves from our apartment door that I'd been wanting to do.
9/5
Visited the Los Alamos and Manhattan Project museum.
9/7
Got trained and passed the test to drive the large forklifts
9/8
My time at LANL came to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment