I think all the kids are bored or something. I probably need to give them something to do. They’ve all wandered into the office multiple times while I’ve been trying to code, which makes it hard to concentrate. I don’t mind distractions, but it can be tough to get back into working mode afterward.
Thursday, everyone stayed home. Tommy wasn’t feeling well, so he missed work. He also had Friday off, so we made a Costco run, and he made more progress on the desk — it’s really shaping up nicely.
Saturday was supposed to be event day, but it got canceled at the last minute due to the government shutdown. Since Tommy had already paid for the hotel, we decided to take a trip up to Los Alamos and Jemez National Forest instead. Kel stayed home since she had schoolwork to work on. On our way to Los Alamos, we stopped by this French bakery/restaurant, and I got a palmier and Tommy got a cookie. He wanted a sandwich, but the kitchen was already closed.
I’ve always liked Los Alamos. Long before it became world-famous, it was home to the Ancestral Puebloan peoples for centuries. They lived in the surrounding canyons and left behind cliff dwellings and petroglyphs you can still see today at Bandelier National Monument.
By the early 1900s, the area had become ranch land — most notably the Los Alamos Ranch School, where wealthy families sent their sons to toughen up through horseback riding, camping, and outdoor education.
In 1943, during World War II, the U.S. government quietly bought the ranch and surrounding land. Overnight, the Los Alamos Ranch School vanished. Families were told to pack up and leave with little explanation.
The place became Site Y, part of the Manhattan Project — the top-secret effort to develop the first atomic bomb. The government built fences and guard gates, and Los Alamos was even removed from maps. Workers received mail addressed simply to P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Even babies born there had that listed as their birthplace.
After the war, Los Alamos didn’t fade back into the desert. The fences stayed, but the work shifted to nuclear power, supercomputers, and deep-space research. Eventually, the gates opened, and the town became a place people could visit, drive through, and even call home.
Today, if you walk its streets — past Oppenheimer Drive, the Bradbury Science Museum, or the old guard towers still standing — you can still feel its history. The town officially opened to the public in 1957. The post office still honors the old “P.O. Box 1663” for nostalgia, and the street names — like Oppenheimer Drive and Manhattan Loop — pay quiet tribute to its past.
Tommy and I also drove up into the Jemez Mountains to take pictures of the stars. The canceled event was supposed to take place at the Valles Caldera, a 13.7-mile-wide volcanic caldera in the Jemez Mountains. Today, the Caldera looks peaceful — wide meadows stretching under the vast New Mexico sky, dotted with elk and shadowed by Redondo Peak. Steam still rises in places, a quiet reminder that the volcano beneath is only sleeping.
Photographers had planned to capture the night sky there, so we decided to do the same. We took a few pictures in daylight — including a couple of cows that wandered by — and shots of the Caldera itself. When night fell, Tommy set up his camera on the tripod, but the nearly full moon made things tricky. The moon was so bright that the photos looked almost like daylight. Still, they turned out beautifully in their own way. I even took some pictures with my phone, and you can really see how bright the moon made the sky. We couldn’t help wondering how the event would’ve gone, since the moonlight would’ve washed out most of the stars.
When we finished taking pictures, we packed up — only to find that the car wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. I didn’t want to believe it. I half-hoped that if we just let the car rest, it might come back to life, but of course, batteries don’t work that way. We started flagging people down, which made me feel shy, but it had to be done. Thankfully, a firefighter stopped to help. She had jumper cables and even said she could radio for backup if needed. She helped us jump the car, and it roared back to life. We thanked her and made our way down the mountain toward Los Alamos.
Sunday morning, I had no coffee, which made me sleepy. I don’t like having coffee while traveling — what if I need to use the bathroom and there aren’t any places to stop along the way? We stopped at Taco Bell for lunch, then headed home. I unpacked while Tommy worked on my desk. That evening, he had a hockey game. His team won, and he played much better than last week. Afterward, we swung by the store before it closed to grab dinner for tonight and ingredients for his work lunches.
Tonight, we’re having Chile Colorado — a stew made with tender chunks of beef simmered in a thick chile sauce. It’s not tomato-based; its color and flavor come from dried red chiles that are toasted, soaked, and blended into a smooth, smoky, slightly spicy sauce. I’ve also been cooking pinto beans since this morning, and we have tortillas to go with them.
I didn’t mean to write this much, but I find Los Alamos and its surroundings fascinating. I started laundry this morning — it’s in the dryer now — and I should get back to coding. Hopefully, I can focus a bit better this time.
The leftover Chinese food I had for lunch wasn’t much, so I’m still hungry. I can’t decide whether to grab a small snack or just have some coffee to take the edge off—it’s making it hard to focus again. I think I’ll go make some coffee. Getting up from my desk and moving around a bit might help too.
Now I’m going to start on dinner. I need to cut and sear the meat first, then make the sauce so the meat can finish cooking in it. I want it to simmer for a while. I’m also making some Spanish rice.
