2009 NM Days 1 and 2
It's been a while, been concentrating on posts on other sites regarding my volunteer work with the Humane Society. Here is what I have been up to lately.
Monday and Tuesday, 2/15-2/16
We landed in Albuquerque after two uneventful flights, about 7:30 pm. We checked into our hotel and went to bed early. Tuesday morning we headed out to see the Very Large Array, a group of giant radio telescopes in the middle of nowhere. They are located at about 7000 feet altitude, in a valley surrounded by mountains. This shields them from radio interference from any towns. Not that they are near anything anyway. Socorro is a tiny town about an hour south of A and the VLA is about and hour west of that. When Keith first saw them, as we drove over the hill, he wasn’t too impressed. But as we kept driving and driving and they kept getting bigger and bigger, he became very impressed! The air is so clear here that it is hard to judge distance. Keith is at the base of one dish in both pictures below.
We walked all around and had a great time there. One funny thing, the door to the display area had a sign on it that said, “This door will be locked on windy days. Please use the rear door.” Since the wind was blowing about 40 mph, we wondered just what they would consider a windy day!
They are over 80 feet in diameter, our whole house would fit in half of one. By lining up these telescopes, they have the listening power of a telescope much larger – miles across - too large to be built there. They also had an interesting display of the power of the dishes. They had two dishes about 9 feet in diameter placed about 60 feet apart. When we spoke to each other in the most hushed voices, it sounded like we were standing right next to each other. Once we were outside the concentrating area of the dish, we had to yell to hear each other. Amazing!
On our walk around the premises we saw a pack of jackrabbits! They bolted when we got too near them, but Keith got a good picture of one.
After our walking tour, we drove over to the dish maintenance building and one dish was in for rehab. The High Plains Lifter is like a dolly for the dishes. It lifts them off their pedestals and then trundles them via rail to their next position. Each railroad crossing was marked with a RailRoad Crossing Exempt sign which I found out means that school busses and commercial vehicles aren’t required to stop before crossing the track. I guess they don’t figure the lifter hauling a dish will run down someone.
We finished up and were on the way out when we saw a huge buck with a very large rack just crossing the road. We were sure glad he hadn’t been there a minute earlier.
The drive to Roswell was across a small mountain range and as we crossed, we stopped and looked at the stars/ Man oh man – like nothing you see in the east! The combination of altitude, no humidity and being a hundred miles from anything sure gave us a great view of the stars and the Milky Way. Venus was so bright it was amazing. If it hadn’t been cold and windy we would have stayed longer. We decided to drive on to Carlsbad that night so we could be there first thing in the morning. As we went through Roswell on our way to Carlsbad, I called and made a hotel reservation for the Best Western. I asked her for directions, telling her we would be coming from Roswell on 285. She said to go North on 285 and the hotel would be on the left hand side. I said we were coming from the north (since Roswell is north of Carlsbad, duh!) and then she said they would be on the right hand side. I figured she was a dope and I would call back once we got into town.
On the drive down, we saw a huge lighted structure that turned out to be an oil refinery. It looked like a cross between a fairy land and an inferno. All the buildings were lit up on the outside and there were 6 separate pipes that spewed various types of flame and smoke. 4 of them were putting out long streamers of yellow flame and the wind was so strong that the flame was horizontal to the ground. One tall pipe had a smoke streamer and one had a small blue flame at the top. We saw a few oil rigs, but not as many as I would have thought. There was a distinct odor of sulphur in the air. The name of the town was Artesia, and apparently there was a big artesian well there, but as it was night, we drove on.
Each little house along the way was sitting in a pool of lamplight. It looks like they don’t have street lights per se out in the country, but each house has its own street light.
We arrived in Carlsbad about 9 pm after having left Albuquerque at 10 that morning. It was a long day and we were pooped. We stopped at a Walgreen’s to buy the essentials, a humidifier to keep our amphibious mucous membranes from drying out overnight as well as many gallons of waters for same. I called the hotel again for directions and got Irene, the same lady, and she gave me the same directions as before – obviously not the brightest bulb in the bunch, so we decided to ask the locals at the Walgreens. The hotel was on Main Street and that is what 285 was called when it got into town she said. We asked the guys how to get there and they looked puzzled. They said,
“Well, we do have a street called Main Street, but it isn’t 285. 285 is called Canal Street once it gets into town and that is where our Best Western is, on Canal Street.”
All of a sudden I got a funny feeling that perhaps I had screwed up. I told Keith, let’s go out to the car and check. Sure enough, I had booked the Best Western in Roswell, as we were driving through Roswell to Carlsbad – over an hour away. Who’s the dope now?
We called Irene back and (mentally) apologized for calling her an idiot (since we didn’t actually verbalize it) and told her what idiotic thing I had done and she cancelled the reservation with no charge. Whew! Then we called the correct Best Western, on Canal Street and booked a room for two very tired and very humble travelers.
Monday and Tuesday, 2/15-2/16
We landed in Albuquerque after two uneventful flights, about 7:30 pm. We checked into our hotel and went to bed early. Tuesday morning we headed out to see the Very Large Array, a group of giant radio telescopes in the middle of nowhere. They are located at about 7000 feet altitude, in a valley surrounded by mountains. This shields them from radio interference from any towns. Not that they are near anything anyway. Socorro is a tiny town about an hour south of A and the VLA is about and hour west of that. When Keith first saw them, as we drove over the hill, he wasn’t too impressed. But as we kept driving and driving and they kept getting bigger and bigger, he became very impressed! The air is so clear here that it is hard to judge distance. Keith is at the base of one dish in both pictures below.
We walked all around and had a great time there. One funny thing, the door to the display area had a sign on it that said, “This door will be locked on windy days. Please use the rear door.” Since the wind was blowing about 40 mph, we wondered just what they would consider a windy day!
They are over 80 feet in diameter, our whole house would fit in half of one. By lining up these telescopes, they have the listening power of a telescope much larger – miles across - too large to be built there. They also had an interesting display of the power of the dishes. They had two dishes about 9 feet in diameter placed about 60 feet apart. When we spoke to each other in the most hushed voices, it sounded like we were standing right next to each other. Once we were outside the concentrating area of the dish, we had to yell to hear each other. Amazing!
On our walk around the premises we saw a pack of jackrabbits! They bolted when we got too near them, but Keith got a good picture of one.
After our walking tour, we drove over to the dish maintenance building and one dish was in for rehab. The High Plains Lifter is like a dolly for the dishes. It lifts them off their pedestals and then trundles them via rail to their next position. Each railroad crossing was marked with a RailRoad Crossing Exempt sign which I found out means that school busses and commercial vehicles aren’t required to stop before crossing the track. I guess they don’t figure the lifter hauling a dish will run down someone.
We finished up and were on the way out when we saw a huge buck with a very large rack just crossing the road. We were sure glad he hadn’t been there a minute earlier.
The drive to Roswell was across a small mountain range and as we crossed, we stopped and looked at the stars/ Man oh man – like nothing you see in the east! The combination of altitude, no humidity and being a hundred miles from anything sure gave us a great view of the stars and the Milky Way. Venus was so bright it was amazing. If it hadn’t been cold and windy we would have stayed longer. We decided to drive on to Carlsbad that night so we could be there first thing in the morning. As we went through Roswell on our way to Carlsbad, I called and made a hotel reservation for the Best Western. I asked her for directions, telling her we would be coming from Roswell on 285. She said to go North on 285 and the hotel would be on the left hand side. I said we were coming from the north (since Roswell is north of Carlsbad, duh!) and then she said they would be on the right hand side. I figured she was a dope and I would call back once we got into town.
On the drive down, we saw a huge lighted structure that turned out to be an oil refinery. It looked like a cross between a fairy land and an inferno. All the buildings were lit up on the outside and there were 6 separate pipes that spewed various types of flame and smoke. 4 of them were putting out long streamers of yellow flame and the wind was so strong that the flame was horizontal to the ground. One tall pipe had a smoke streamer and one had a small blue flame at the top. We saw a few oil rigs, but not as many as I would have thought. There was a distinct odor of sulphur in the air. The name of the town was Artesia, and apparently there was a big artesian well there, but as it was night, we drove on.
Each little house along the way was sitting in a pool of lamplight. It looks like they don’t have street lights per se out in the country, but each house has its own street light.
We arrived in Carlsbad about 9 pm after having left Albuquerque at 10 that morning. It was a long day and we were pooped. We stopped at a Walgreen’s to buy the essentials, a humidifier to keep our amphibious mucous membranes from drying out overnight as well as many gallons of waters for same. I called the hotel again for directions and got Irene, the same lady, and she gave me the same directions as before – obviously not the brightest bulb in the bunch, so we decided to ask the locals at the Walgreens. The hotel was on Main Street and that is what 285 was called when it got into town she said. We asked the guys how to get there and they looked puzzled. They said,
“Well, we do have a street called Main Street, but it isn’t 285. 285 is called Canal Street once it gets into town and that is where our Best Western is, on Canal Street.”
All of a sudden I got a funny feeling that perhaps I had screwed up. I told Keith, let’s go out to the car and check. Sure enough, I had booked the Best Western in Roswell, as we were driving through Roswell to Carlsbad – over an hour away. Who’s the dope now?
We called Irene back and (mentally) apologized for calling her an idiot (since we didn’t actually verbalize it) and told her what idiotic thing I had done and she cancelled the reservation with no charge. Whew! Then we called the correct Best Western, on Canal Street and booked a room for two very tired and very humble travelers.
posted by colbysmycat @ 3/03/2009 03:07:00 PM
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