Espanola, New Mexico

From Santa Fe we drove a short distance up to Espanola to visit our friends, Teddy and Birdie, who are parents to Tim, whom we had dinner with our first night in Santa Fe. 

We met Teddy and Birdie back in 2009 when they were campers in Big Meadows and they invited us to dinner. They camp with us two to three times each summer.  Teddy is a dutch oven and disk cooking master and sets up a huge cook tent when he camps with us. Luckily we are asked to dinner often.

Teddy parked us around the corner of their house by the local livestock arena.  And surprisingly there was a family of buffalo penned up there.

We sat outside and enjoyed the cool evening and caught up on our lives since last summer.

                  

Wednesday Teddy drove us to Los Alamos where Birdie works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. the drive up was so pretty.

It sure was interesting to see this town all based on where the atomic bomb was invented/created.

This is said to have been one of the ponds where waste water was held during the Manhattan Project. Now a clean water feature in a pretty city park.	Green glass building in back is called The Green Castle by locals and is where “the big wigs” have their offices.
Guard shacks only manned when security levels are high	The Lab covers 45 square miles of lovely country.

After driving through the town of Los Alamos we headed toward Jemez Mountains. There have been two forest fires in the last 12 years.  The char remains are still visible today.

            
But then we drove through this enchanted area. This large area was up to recently a private ranch, but sold and is now Valles Caldera National Preserve. It is a huge 89,000 acres with this panoramic view .  Teddy use to transport cattle to graze there.  Happily, the preserve is still open to the public on weekends.

Further up the road we encountered more beautiful scenery.

It was a great day of sightseeing and even the drive by home brought us beautiful sights.

Back home we enjoyed a great dinner of homemade beans and chili that provided us a great Frito Pie

 

 

We said our goodbyes that night as Teddy and Birdie had to go to work early the next morning. We sooooo enjoyed our visit with them and look forward to seeing them in South Fork this summer.

Remember, you are loved.