The natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, Saturday morning. Most of my Carlsbad photos didn't come out very well.	TOP TWO: my best photos inside the Caverns, for whatever they're worth. TOP-RIGHT: I'm looking straight up at some stalactites. BOTTOM-RIGHT: near Carlsbad, a lone plant in the middle of nowhere.
Roswell, Saturday afternoon, near the infamous 1947 UFO crash site. It might seem like an ordinary Arby's, but take a closer look at the sign...	The International UFO Museum and Research Center. Yes, they even have a web site.	A typical souvenir shop in Roswell. In this one, the shopkeeper gave me his theory on alien abduction. (I decided to leave when he started describing his abduction experience.)
Just before sunset Saturday, driving from Roswell to Alamogordo.
Random spacecraft in front of the International Space Hall of Fame and Space Center in Alamogordo, very early Sunday morning.
This set of pictures is from White Sands National Monument, early Sunday morning. Southern New Mexico's idea of heavy traffic. :-)	These five photos were all taken from the same point, facing different directions. Don't come out here if you're agoraphobic! Few places on the ground offer a better sense of wide-open space and nothingness.
The Valley of Fires, on the north edge of the White Sands Missile Range. Not far from the Trinity Site, where LANL tested the first atomic bomb. Taken Sunday afternoon on the drive from White Sands to the VLA.	WEST                             EAST NORTH SOUTH Approaching the VLA. All four photos were taken from the same point. The flat, open space is larger than the entire DC metro area (inside the Beltway).
The VLA (Very Large Array) is a huge radio telescope. It consists of 27 dish-shaped antennas arranged in a "Y" that can function together as if they were one dish with a diameter ranging from 2 miles to 22 miles. In all five pictures, the focus is the dish closest to the visitor's center.
VLA maintenance facilites. The yellow building on the left is 110 feet tall. The crane-like thing in the other two photos is used to transport dishes along the railroad tracks.		At the maintenance area, facing north. (By the way, it was a sunny afternoon. The dishes are so white that the sky looks dark.)
Sunday's Sunset on the Santa Fe Ski Hill. From the VLA, it was about 150 miles north, 4000 feet higher (for a total of 11000 above sea level), and 40 degrees colder. (I didn't know Calvin and Hobbes went skiing in Santa Fe, but I think that snowman proves it.)
Monday morning and I'm heading back to work. About 10-15 minutes into my daily commute, I pass Camel Rock. The pictures don't show it, but you can see Los Alamos from here, even though it's 20 miles away.		A cool cloud formation underneath the Jemez mountains, about 25-30 minutes into my commute.
An overlook about 5 minutes away from Los Alamos. Ed and Allie got better pictures of it, which appear below.

Easter 1999
We kept our "home base" in Santa Fe, so we didn't cover as much sheer distance as I did on my Halloween trip. But we still managed to exhaust ourselves with all the driving, hiking, eating, and sightseeing. These are all pictures from their camera.

Cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument, about 10 miles from Los Alamos, Saturday afternoon. This was home to the Anasazi Indians until about 500 years ago.	A view of the valley from inside one of the cliff dwellings.	Ruins near the cliff dwellings.
Ed and Allie at Bandelier, near the cliff dwellings.	A ceremonial cave, about 140 feet above the valley floor, accessible only by a series of ladders (look closely at the full-size picture and you can see two of the ladders near the top). It started snowing when we started climbing up, and it stopped snowing about 20 minutes later, right when we finished descending.
An overlook in White Rock, the only "suburb" of Los Alamos, later Saturday afternoon. The river below is the Rio Grande.	The same overlook near Los Alamos that appears at the end of the Halloween trip.
Views from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, Sunday afternoon, about 12 miles outside of Taos. Guess which river is flowing below. :-)
From the base of the mountain, about 7000 feet above sea level. (The building near the center of the picture looks badly tilted at first, but it's really just built in several sections, each of which is at a slightly different height.)	Views from the road leading up to the Taos Ski Valley, later Sunday afternoon.	A cool looking stream that runs alongside nearly the entire road.
From the parking lot at the base of the ski slopes, about 9200 feet above sea level. It was pretty crowded, especially considering the ski season was almost over.