Friday, February 09, 2007

Black Hole

Reader (and writer you should read-- see here and here and here, for some examples) John McLoughlin has just visited a most amazing store in Los Alamos.

He writes:

"Here's a fun place to visit. I've appended some images from today's trip to the Black Hole down in Los Alamos, an eerily amazing place that sells surplus laboratory equipment from the vast government laboratories up there. You can find all manner of weirdness here. I go down about twice a year when I get cabin fever.

"Here's a view of the Black Hole's yard, with a bomb and a short length of solid stainless steel pipe (standing on end to immediate right of bomb, behind flags). The church building in the background among the trees was bought by Ed Grothus [owner]
and is used for storage of more Black Hole stuff. He calls it the Church of Annihilation."





"Here's a Bombflower welded together by the Black Hole's owner, Ed Grothus. He's about 84, and quite a character, a former Lab scientist who turned into a peacenik scavenger."



"Another view of the Black Hole yard. That big pipe is the same stainless steel stuff as in the prior photograph; I can walk through it standing up. You could buy some if you wanted, and keep it in your living-room, just for fun."



I need to go there!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grinning and shaking my head... My copy of McLoughlin's The Canine Clan is 3 feet away from me, between Grouse of N America and Hunting Dogs from Around the World.

Steve Bodio said...

John has many fans among Q's readers.

Anonymous said...

The Black Hole, been there several times. Walking the long dimly lit hallways inside reveals treat after treat of old cold-war era equipment. I'm sure much of it was classified at some point, now it is all junk, but cool junk. Ed also has lots of surplus steel and I go there to get materials for projects. Steve, if you ever come to Los Alamos you should check it out.

Heidi the Hick said...

Looks like my kind of place!