Oñate and his conquistadors kill 800 men, women and children at Acoma Pueblo, 60 miles west of what is now Albuquerque. They rename the pueblo Socorro, meaning “help” or “aid.” When they reach the desert’s northern edge, they receive food and water from the Piro Indians of the Teypana Pueblo. Juan de Oñate leads a group of Spanish conquistadors north along the Camino Real, across an unforgiving stretch of the Jornada del Muerto desert. As we squinted down the highway, we saw a chain reaction of violence, ricocheting across the desert of history. It was this enchanting mess that pulled us to the place where the atom was split, to create the world’s first nuclear weapon. Where thickly forested landscapes are punctuated with dusty arroyos, and linear particle accelerators are built on plateaus above centuries-old Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings. The farther you drive, the more it fuses together in the Sangre de Cristo mountain light, a place where alien conspiracy theories on the radio are as eagerly received as the sacrament. From the road signs marking pueblos and Indian reservations, to patches of radioactive rabbitbrush in Bajo Canyon, New Mexico’s cracked and cratered landscapes are riddled with violent histories, nuclear secrets, veins of turquoise and silver. Tourism and destruction aren’t easily separated here, especially after the invention of the atom bomb. As we accelerated back onto the highway, a trio of military jets flew overhead, out over the desert. That history seemed a dark undercurrent to the “Land of Enchantment” celebrated on the license plates in front of us. Both of us were intrigued by New Mexico’s nuclear past and with how that legacy has been branded, packaged and sold. Leaving the birthplace of the microchip and Google, we came to see where the atomic bomb was born. We’d wanted to get out of the Bay Area for a little while, away from its tech fantasies and housing crunches. Our rented Kia Soul was strewn with camping gear, groceries and lots of sand. We were on an “atomic tourism” road trip. We settled on a chocolate bar and two massive cups of coffee and were back on the road. Even if you don’t buy anything, the fever dream stays with you, living out a half-life under your skin. Its walls and aisles are bursting: hundreds of hot pink and neon-green dreamcatchers, Minnetonka moccasins, “I Want to Believe” posters from the X-files, “Zuni jewelry,” Mexican blankets woven in every imaginable color, T-shirts, bumper stickers declaring: “Police Lives Matter,” “Heritage not Hate,” “One Nation under God.” For $1, you can have a fortune generated by a stern-faced Medicine Man in a glass case. The gift shop is the size of a warehouse. We needed gas, coffee, restrooms, a chance to stretch our legs. “Worth stopping for since 1934,” the signs say. Route 285, the iconic gas-station-diner-gift shop is an oasis of respite and kitsch. For a hundred miles, billboards prime you: “Souvenirs,” “Indian Pottery,” “Fireworks,” “99-cent Coffee.” At the junction of Interstate 40 and U.S. Refueling sixteen-wheelers, a cloudless blue sky and an asphalt parking lot that blurs into the brown scrub beyond the intersection of two highways: If you’re headed north from White Sands National Monument up to Santa Fe, as we were, you’ll hit the Clines Corners rest stop.
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