Green chile cheeseburger from the Owl Bar and Cafe.
FWIW, Burger Boy in Cedar Crest NM is better IMO.
Posted on 07/14/2011 6:30:27 PM PDT by NEWwoman
In 1939, Albert Einstein sent a letter (written largely by Leó Szilárd) to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The pressing concern was that Nazi Germany might be conducting research to create atomic bombs, and the letter suggested that the United States should begin researching the possibility itself. This was the impetus for the Manhattan project, which culminated in the explosion of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico.
Socorro, New Mexico, a little more than an hour’s drive south of Albuquerque, is one of the meeting places for those who plan to visit the Trinity Site. Socorro, from the Spanish word for “help,” has a long history. In late 16th century, the Piro-speaking Pueblo Indians had helped the Spaniards, who had emerged from the desert, giving them food and water. The city is still a help, providing lodging and services to the many personnel supporting the White Sands Missile Range.
Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975, the Trinity Site is near the north end of the Jornada del Muerto desert. This desert name often translates as “journey of the dead man,” the name the Spanish conquistadors gave to the 1660s northerly route from Mexico. The origin of the code name “Trinity” is uncertain. It is often attributed to Robert Oppenheimer as a reference to a poem of John Donne: “Batter my heart, three person’d God;—.” (Holy Sonnets XIV).
The entrance into White Sands is through the Stallion Gate. The Martin Cruz Smith novel of the same name suggests its origin from the Native Americans, who used to roundup stallions and trade them in the area. A local historian debunks that story. Many of the ranchers had left horses behind when they were forced to leave in 1942 and in 1945. The horses formed small herds and a stallion that was well endowed ran on the north end, hence the origin of the site name “stallion.”
At Stallion Gate, guards record our license plate number and ID. Information on the route and site was given as were instructions of no photos until we got to Ground Zero.
The first leg is a southerly 14 mile drive into the desert, which is studded with scrub brush and yucca plants, many spouting to the size of large bushes. The grasses are greening due to fall rains. The desert is considered ecologically sensitive evident by the caliche clay, which can turn to a fine talcum powder like substance when trodden upon.
One of the animal crossing signs was unusual, which looked like a mule with horns. This sign was for the oryx, an African antelope, which the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish had imported from Kalahari Desert to an experimental range. The resulting oryx offspring were introduced between 1969 and 1977 at White Sands and the animals adapted very well in the desert, especially in the absence of their natural predator, the lion. Hence, this explained the posted signs along our route for designated hunting areas. A guard later explained that to cull the oryx herds there are depredation hunts at White Sands.
At an intersection, we turn toward the Sierra Oscura Mountains for the last three miles to the site. Like any big event, parking attendants guide us to a spot near the chain linked fence about Ground Zero. Non-profit vendors from the base Morale, Recreation, and Welfare group provide services from breakfast and lunch to souvenir items. Extra security, facilities for our comfort, and emergency medical personnel are available. We get our brochures, books, postcards or other items stamped to remember this day.
An information booth is at the entrance of the barbed wire corridor that leads to Ground Zero. We walk a quarter mile from the parking lot to the area secured by a circular chain link fence. A lava stone obelisk marks the center of the 100 foot tower on which the bomb had been placed. A brass plaque on the obelisk reads – “TRINITY SITE WHERE THE WORLD’S FIRST NUCLEAR DEVICE WAS EXPLODED ON JULY 16, 1945.” Near the obelisk, cordoned off by rebar or something like it, is a stub of what remained of one of the tower footings.
The explosion created a crater 10 feet deep and 1,100 feet wide, turning the desert sand beneath into a green radioactive glass called Trinitite. A shelter at Ground Zero now protects a portion of the original crater for future study. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, souvenir hunters and enterprising entrepreneurs scavenged the area for Trinitite. In response, the radioactive substance was banned from collection; the site was scraped and filled in, though some remnants remain. A sign at Ground Zero warns that theft of Trinitite can result in fines and jail time. Watchful guards give warnings, especially for those who are stooping down to pick up anything from the ground. Guides have enclosed displays of Trinitite, which was as close as the public is supposed to get to it.
In front of the obelisk, an older gentleman with a Geiger counter kneels down to take a reading. The chaotic clicks increased in frequency as he puts his counter to the ground. The soil is reportedly ten times more radioactive than similar areas in New Mexico. The information brochure gave assurances that radiation levels of cosmic rays from space at Denver, Colorado over a year were about a hundred times more than one hour of exposure at Ground Zero.
The polyglot of languages indicate many international visitors to the Trinity Site. The mood is somber and subdued. During the morning, more visitors circulate through the area, viewing the obelisk, the shelter protecting the original crater, and the casing of the Fatman bomb, whose type was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. Historical photos from the set up of the test site, to snapshots of the first atomic explosion, and then news of the end of World War Two are hung on the chain link fence behind the obelisk.
In the parking area, shuttle buses take visitors to the McDonald ranch house, where the first atomic bomb was partially assembled. The master bedroom, aptly renamed the “Plutonium Assembly Room,” was where the two plutonium hemispheres, making up the “pit,” were put together. The final assembly was at the tower at Ground Zero a few days later. The farm house survived the atomic blast, two miles away, though its windows were blown out. The out buildings did not fair as well. Many are deteriorating and danger signs are posted about them.
As we leave White Sands through the Stallion Gate to the main road, a large green sign says “Trinitite for sale 17 miles” with a big arrow pointing right. Actually, the guides at the Trinitite display at Ground Zero - after warning us not to pick it up - had mentioned with a smile that we could always buy the forbidden Trinitite down the road.
We finish our experience at the Owl Café and Bar in San Antonio, New Mexico. As we eat their world famous green chili cheese burgers, we muse that over sixty five years ago this café had also serviced the workers who had prepared the Trinity Site we had just visited.
July 16 marks the 66th anniversary of the first explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945. And a month later it ended the most terrible war of the 20th century.
I visited the site in October 2008, one of the two times a year Trinity is open to the public.
Green chile cheeseburger from the Owl Bar and Cafe.
FWIW, Burger Boy in Cedar Crest NM is better IMO.
Oh, man, you are making me huuun-gry!
He and hundreds died of cancer from the exposure.
The Owl Cafe green chile cheeseburgers were very good ... so Burger Boy must be awesome!
Enewetok was host to the first hydrogen weapon tests, many of which went “bigger” than planned. No foreign tests there (the Brits tested in Australia at first). Sorry to hear about his death.
New Mexico is the land of FOOD! And when I get the itch for seafood, my Mom lives on the Chesapeake and we get fish and crabs right from the Watermen.
Sorry about your uncle and all the other consequences, esp to the innocent. A former co-worker from NM recalls many illnesses in his home state.
I thank your family for your service and sacrifice.
BTW, an eldery friend who passed away a few years ago was in the Navy near Japan. He told me he saw the blast of the bomb exploding in Japan from 200 miles away. Wow!
Is Bobcat Bite Cafe still open in Santa Fe? They make the best. IMO
NM does have great food. My dear husband had many work trips there in the past and can attest to that.
BTW, mother-in-law is from MD, and still craves their crab cakes.
This is a great country!
...... Was down at the site before all the security an such an the theater was for civilians. I remember goofing off there for a while.
Don’t remember the burger boy in cedar crest so green chili cheese burger at the owl get my vote....
1988 was last time at White Sands Trinity site.... 93 for a few tests....
Stay Safe Slim !
FrogDad and I went about 15 years ago. The site surprised me in that it was so close to the mountains.
I was surprised by the crowds ... yet how quiet it was.
When I was assigned to WSMR in the mid-90’s I had the pleasure of escorting a British Brigadier to the Trinity Site and lunch in San Antonio, NM at the Owl Bar and Grill.
Still have a bit of trinitite I was able to find at the Trinity Site.
It was also open on July 16, 1995, the 50th anniversary. Two friends and I went and slept in a car overnight to be there at 5:29am. There were a few protesters burning something that smelled like pot to provoke the guards.
The next weekday someone called into Rush’s show and mentioned the protestors. The first time Rush ever personally insulted me was when he implied that everyone there was a deadbeat who had nothing else to do:)
I was there to witness a pivotal place in American history.
Holy mac. That thing would feed me and a team of sherpas.
Wow! What a story. You were no dead beat! It is part of history.
In 2008, we saw some wierd looking minature clay “god” left by the fence about Ground Zero. We squished it.
The natives in NM told me that when the bomb went off at the Trinity site it was visible 90 miles away.
The sand beneath the device fused with the copper in the containment vessel and made a green sheet of glass at ground zero. The glass was removed because of the extremely high radioactivity.
The site is open for visiting 1 weekend per year, but is not much to see. A minor depression in the ground is about all that is left.
White Sands Missle range is a very interesting site. Had many friends who worked there.
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