Blog Moving...Possibly

Since deciding to blog more often, I've been posting the last 10 months of blogs on my website. For my latest exploits, visit me there!

Addendum: However, the software that enables my blog on my website has been becoming buggier (it broke just after I wrote the above), and I don't want to spend time doing the upkeep, so the blog may migrate back here depending on my level of laziness.

Addendum #2: Blog has migrated!

White Sands National Monument and Trinity Test Site

This weekend, Sunny and I took a day trip around southern New Mexico. We started by heading to the Trinity Test Site, the site of the first nuclear device explosion in the world. It was pretty anticlimactic. The whole of the original crater has since been filled in by dirt, so none of the fused sand is visible except for some pieces in a display case. There are also some historic photographs, including an aerial view of the site that includes a view of the site of the 108-ton TNT explosion they used as a calibration so that they could measure to force of the atomic detonation. These pictures were interesting, though only a brief nod was given to how devastating the force of an atomic explosion is on life and non-living structures. The picture of the sign is at the gate to ground zero. I thought the distances were interesting given that the flash was seen from Albuquerque, and windows were broken in Alamogordo during the explosion.

Then, we went to the White Sands National Monument and sledded on the gypsum sand dunes until we were tired, and hiked a bit. Sledding in October! Hiking in bare feet (not us, though I was tempted)! On our way back we looped through Las Cruces and drove by the future home of the nation's first spaceport. Since I'm starting a food section to my blogging efforts, I'll have to mention that La Cocina, a restaurant in the town of Truth or Consequences and one that was well reviewed in a Frommer's travel guide, was awful. Billed as New Mexican, their enchiladas and chile rellenos were awful, my prime rib was unevenly done, the Blue Moon (on tap!) lacked an orange slice, and their “authentic” New Mexican chile wasn't even hot.

• Trinity Site web page: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trinst.htm
• Trinity test on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_site
• White Sands National Monument: http://www.nps.gov/whsa/
• Don't eat the food: http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=3912

Brief Check-In: Food Blog

So my newest project is to tour Albuquerque in the pursuit of food. Good food, that is. In brainstorming with Sunny, I've come up with a list of various food tours I could work on, including oysters on the half shell, flan, sushi, pho, microbrews, mead, and more to come. Yesterday we went to a local Red Lobster and tried shrimp, lobster, crab, and oysters. It was a decent baseline for what uninformed persons might consider good seafood, but I'll never go there for seafood again unless someone twists my arm. More on that later. Email me with any suggestions for a topic!

Cheers, Truc-Ha