Tag Archives: Technical site

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Cripple Creek Steam Powered Railroad

We decided to take a trip to visit Cripple Creek, a gold mining town west of Pikes Peak. Gold was discovered here in the 1890’s. There are numerous mines including one right in town. The town is mostly old buildings circa 1896 as most wood buildings were destroyed in a fire that year.
In order to get gold ore from the mines around town, they built a narrow gauge rail line from town to the mines. Standard gauge for railroads is 4′-8 1/2″. This line is 2 ft.
The engines are coal fired steam. The actual engines used date from the 1920’s since the originals no long exist.
Along the line, we saw many old abandoned mines. Mines would stake a claim and dig down about 10 ft. Then they would take samples to be assayed. Assayors would determine how much gold was in the rock then the miner would determine whether it was worth his time to continue mining.

Here are pictures we took:

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Air Force Academy; could have been Jeff’s alma mater!

Well, we arrived at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Bringing back memories of 1964. I got an appointment to AFA(Same initials as Admiral Farragut Academy- my HS alma mater). To think, I could have been a “Doolie”( Freshman at Air Force) The real highlight of the visit is the Cadet Chapel. Quite impressive.
In the photo of the Quad, you can see the grid where Doolies must walk or run. They are not allowed on the white areas in between the grid.
The campus is quite large with mountains to the west and the plains to the west. Most of the academics and barracks are located arounf the quad. There are approximately 4400 cadets including women here.

98-Santa Fe, NM

Los Alamos – where the first atomic bombs were designed, created and tested

Just outside of Santa Fe is a little town nestled in steep canyons – Los Alamos.  Before WWII it wasn’t a town at all, just some ranches and a boys school.  During WWII our country decided we needed to develop an atomic bomb, in large part because we were pretty sure Germany was developing this technology.  We had several scientists that had escaped from Germany and knew what was being developed there.

So, the little town was built in secret and scientists from all over the country and from our allies were whisked away in secret to live at Los Alamos and develop nuclear fission before Germany could do it.  Many families came with the scientists and all lived in secret – their address was a P.O. Box in Santa Fe, their mail was heavily censored, and they could not travel under their own name but instead used aliases if they had to travel for any reason.  There was a woman who ran the office in Santa Fe that managed mail, supplies, anything the folks in Los Alamos needed.

The bomb was designed and a test version was created and set off in the desert near White Sands.  It was successful, and a few weeks later Fat Man and Little Boy (the two bombs detonated over Japan) were sent out to end the war!

On a personal note, Jeff’s mother had a cousin who worked on the Manhattan Project and disappeared during the war, coming to Los Alamos.  His name was Paul Olum and he was a math genius.  Some of his papers are still used today as the basis for certain types of calculations.  Here’s his ID picture from the Manhattan Project, which we found in a museum in Los Alamos about the Manhattan Project:

95-Alburqueque, NM

We visited the VLA – Very Large Array – 27 huge radio telescopes that see to the furthest reaches of the universe

While in the Albuquerque area we drove to the VLA.  It’s a site of 27 huge radio telescopes out in a flat desert area that is used by various scientists and groups to receive radio signals from the furthest reaches of the universe.  Each of the 27 telescopes is pointed at the exact same spot in space and the 27 act as 1 huge dish to receive and amplify the radio signals.

The VLA is not used to listen for alien signals, rather it’s used to get information about black holes, pulsars, nebulea and other cosmic bodies.  Anyone can request some time from the VLA, you just submit a proposal with scientific information about why you want to point at a specific place in the universe, and if your request is granted the telescopes will gather information from your specific place for a period of a few hours and send you the data.

The VLA telescopes are set up in three rows that point in three different directions.  They are set on tracks, so they can be moved along the three directional arms.  There are four configurations that are used, in one the telescopes are as far apart from each other as possible, in one they are close together as possible, and the other two are in between.  When we visited it was in the “B” configuration, which means the telescopes were pretty far from each other.

Here are some websites with information and videos about the VLA:

 

Here are some pictures (the one with flowers was taken off a postcard).  In the postcard picture the telescopes are in the configuration where they are as close together as possible.  In the closeup picture you can see people near the telescope to get a scope of how big each one is!

93-Roswell and White Sands, NM

New Mexico Museum of Space History

While in Alamogordo we visited the New Mexico Museum of Space History that covers all of the space program with special emphasis on the work done in this area.  It was very interesting and informative, here are some pictures Jeff took:

92-Comfort, TX

Heading towards N.M. with a stop near San Antonio to see caverns and a museum

We’ve left family in Miss. and are headed towards N.M. for the start of our summer travels.  Our first stop is Comfort, TX which is about 30 miles northwest of San Antonio.  We stopped one night in Beaumont, TX as we don’t like to travel more than about 6 hours in a day.

Our plan for Comfort was to visit the Cascade Cavern nearby and also see the Museum of the Pacific War.  But, bad weather disrupted our plans.

The first night we were here a severe thunderstorm struck about 11pm.  And I mean SEVERE!  Continuous lightning and thunder close by so it was extremely loud.  And, it hailed as well, not more than 1″ but heavy and for almost an hour.  It was really loud on the roof of our 5th wheel and really scared Laddy…me too!

So much rain that the cavern was closed as it was flooded.  We were told to call back the next morning to see if it would be open.  No such luck as it rained the following night too.

We did get to see the Museum of the Pacific War in nearby Fredericksburg.  It was very interesting and had lots of information, photos, and some planes and artillery on display. Below are a few pictures that Jeff took.

We can’t stay longer here as we have made reservations, so the cavern will have to wait for another visit.  Oh well!