The first view I have of the City of Rocks immediately reminds me of the trip Tom and I took to Stonehenge in England. But man had no hand in the striking formations that rise out of the New Mexico desert.

This geological oddity is the result of volcanic ash spewed out 30 million years ago, piled up, buried and pressed into rock, then pushed back to the surface, where wind and water carved it into wild looking obelisks, teetering sculptures and mushroomlike stands.

They stood watch in a missile silo, next to an immense projectile carrying a nine-megaton nuclear warhead, waiting for the call to launch. The crews assigned to Titan Missile silos were standing on the brink of madness we approached during the Cold War.

The Titan Missile Museum outside Green Valley, Arizona, is an eerie reminder of the era of mutually assured destruction, as the United States and Soviet Union aimed even nuclear firepower to annihilate the world many times over.

For us, it carries even more significance because one of Tom’s friends since high school served in a silo near McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas.