Today’s adventure started at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Museum…

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This is a very nice museum that explains the history and culture of the Pueblo Indians.  There are 19 Pueblos in New Mexico today (historically, there have been more than 100 over the years…), with many more in Arizona, and other adjacent States.  While these cultures and these Indians tend to be grouped together, each Pueblo has a different language, different culture, and different religious traditions.  The museum explored the prehistoric years, the years under the subjugation of the Spanish and then the Mexicans, and finally life under the US, with treaties, broken treaties, lands being stolen, lands being returned, forced boarding school and forced assimilation, and the era of the casinos.  It was very informative.  We will visit many of the Pueblos on the caravan.  The museum even had an exhibit on how their adobe houses were built:

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Note the “logs” poking through the walls;  these are called vigas; we will discuss these more when we get to Santa Fe…

Following the Indian Pueblo Cultural Museum we traveled to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History…

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Another interesting place…

The museum has three areas: the history, the science, and the uses of nuclear energy.

The history section had exhibits on the early scientists, the Manhattan Project, and other military exhibits, including the cold war.  They had full-size models of the three atomic bombs tested and used in World War II.  This area was of the most interest to us.

Personal side note here:  In the exhibits describing the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki they explained how Col. Paul Tibbetts selected 15 crews to train for these secret missions.  The crews were trained in the new B-29 bombers.  During each mission there were seven planes involved, including three weather reconnaissance planes, plus a back-up plane waiting on the runway on Iwo Jima.  Here is the personal connection:  Our family dentist back in the 1970s and 1980s was Dr. Raymond Biel.  Biel was the co-pilot of one of the weather planes over Hiroshima and the co-pilot of the backup plane on Iwo Jima during the Nagasaki mission.  He learned of the atomic bomb after returning to the base on Tinian… Dr. Biel wrote a novel and retired early from his dental practice…

After the nuclear museum we did a little grocery shopping, fueled the truck, and returned to the RV Park.  Thunderstorms were threatening, but they never materialized;  at 7:00 we had our first “Drivers Meeting”, where we discussed the activities of this location, driving instructions for tomorrow’s travel, and future activities in and around Santa Fe…

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Tomorrow we travel to another RV Park in Pojoaque, just north of Santa Fe… We will also attempt to drive by two Frank Lloyd Wright houses…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…