Thursday, February 16, 2012

Past meets the present....

To say that parts of  New Mexico is old is akin to saying the Sun is hot. There are parts of New Mexico that are not only quite dusty but astonishingly almost brand new.


We spent some time at the Museum of Space History in Alamogordo (say that fast 3xs...) recently - nestled up against the Sacramento Mountains and behind a very modern NM State University, the grounds also are home to the Clyde W. Tombaugh IMAX® Dome Theater.

Originally this started out as a "Hall of Fame" to those who were instrumental in all things flight/space related and then in 1976 the state of NM took over and created the museum as it stands today. Not only are there lots of rockets, astronaut related gear/clothes/history, there is also 153 portraits of "space" pioneers which grace the walls as you walk down from the 4th floor on your self guided tour. We did converse with a volunteer docent who was able to provide us with some current information about the surrounding topography, missile/rocket testing, federal/state/city land acquisitions



Outside there are quite a few rockets, missiles and space vehicles to look over. This rocket, Little Joe II, can be seen from 2 miles away in downtown Alamogordo. Little Joe was used to test the Apollo launch escape system.


White Sands National Monument can be seen on the left side of the map below. The dark slash through the center (top half) is the remnants of early volcanic eruptions.

After our visit to the museum we drove out to the Three Rivers Petroglyphs - and spent a good 75 minutes, very windy 75 mins roaming around the landscape snapping photos of petroglyphs that have been in the 'hood for 600 years.
 This was an amazing walk, even with the wind.


We took a lot of photos, far to many to put into this blog so I made a 2 min movie of the best ones.

ENJOY the look back into the past today.


~ CIAO....

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