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location and is a fascinating study in American pop culture. You can’t actually visit the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear science was born, but the well-designed Bradbury Science Museum walks you through atomic history with more than 40 high-tech interactive exhibits. Also stop at the Los Alamos Historical Museum, displaying pop-culture artifacts from the Cold War. Los Alamos’ stunning Jemez Mountains locale is worth a night of your life. Spend it in the East Room at the Adobe Pines B&B – it has a balcony with amazing views. Grab dinner at the Canyon Bar & Grill, which does a great green-chile cheeseburger.

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DETOUR

On the first Saturday in April and October detour to the Trinity Site in the northern corner of the White Sands Missile Range to see where the first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945. The blast, which created an 8-mile-high mushroom cloud visible for hundreds of miles and a quarter-mile crater, took place in a desolate area ironically known as the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death). The Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce (www.alamogordo.com) has tour info and dates.

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Retrace your tracks to Santa Fe the next morning, then take I-25 south to Albuquerque. The National Museum of Atomic Nuclear Science & History features an impressive collection of nuclear weapons (relax, the warheads aren’t attached but everything else is real) and activities for kids. Albuquerque’s atomic-alien nightlife theme aligns itself perfectly with this trip’s chakras, so hit the blue-collar clubs and sophisticated biker bars around bustling Central Ave après dark. The appropriately named Launch Pad is a retro-meets-modern gathering place for people of all tribes (and planets). Treat your body to an otherworldly nutritional experience on night number three. Los Poblanos is on an organic farm surrounded by lavender fields. The B&B’s six rooms feature kiva fireplaces. Breakfast here means tasting some of the farm’s 75 varieties of fruits and vegetables cultivated without the use of any synthetic chemicals. Talk about out of this world.

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THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE?

The US government has changed its story about the Roswell crash enough times to turn even a flying-saucer skeptic into a conspiracy theory believer. The first press release identified the object as a disk, but a day later the disk had become a weather balloon. The feds then confiscated all the previous press releases, cordoned off the area and posted armed guards to escort curious locals from the crash site. Calls were supposedly placed to a local mortician about the availability of small, hermetically-sealed coffins.

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Continue south on I-25 through a bleached desert of agave and yucca to Las Cruces. Wedged between the sparkling waters of the Rio Grande and the fluted Organ Mountains, beautiful Las Cruces is sadly one of New Mexico’s poorest cities. Locals hope this changes in 2010, when Britain’s rebel billionaire Sir Richard Branson starts blasting tourists into outer space from the Southwest Regional Spaceport 25 miles east of town. A cool $200,000 will buy you a 90-minute, 62-mile straight-up ride on a Virgin Galactic spaceship. With reclining seats, big windows and a pressurized cabin to eliminate the need for wearing unfashionable space suits, Branson hopes it will entice everyone from honeymooners to visitors from outer space. “We might even be able to allow those aliens who landed at Roswell 50 years ago in a UFO a chance to go home,” he jokes.

Your trip started with a quarter million bats. End it at the world’s largest pure gypsum dune field, the otherworldly White Sands National Monument, which resembles a frosted, almost hairspray-stiff version of sand drifts found on coastal beaches. Drive the 16-mile scenic loop into the heart of the cocaine-colored dunes, making sure to get out and climb, romp, slide and roll around. Stay for sunset when watered-down sunlight paints the white canvas a heavenly pink, purple and gold. It’s a hell of a visual.

Becca Blond

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