The itinerary planned by Karen. Eleven and a half hours of driving in two days. The plan was thus: head down to the Very Large Array. Tours of the VLA are given on the first Saturday of the month. The first one started at 11am. Take some photos there, including the Shot. Then, continue driving further south until we reach Elephant Butte. Set up camp and spend the night there. The next morning, swing through Las Cruces, then turn east and check out White Sands. We’d spend a few hours there before progressing north to the Valley of Fires and home. Not so many destinations, but it was a pretty long haul that would cover the southern portion of the state.
As an addendum, thanks to Karen for planning out this weekend. We had tossed some ideas back and forth, but much of the planning was due to her efforts. I tend to be a bit less structured when I sightsee. Consequently, things tend to go a lot less smoothly.
To the Very Large Array!
Karen and I are huge nerds, and both of us love the film “Contact” (with Jodie Foster). In college, we used to joke that Karen looked like Jodie and we'd always wanted to recreate several of the iconic scenes from the movie. So, part of our reason for visiting the VLA was to have a photo shoot of sorts. In addition to this, the VLA is cool for its own sake. It’s a lab that has an array of massive radio telescopes and is open to the public. How much more awesome can you get?
The interior of the lab is stuck in a time-stasis; I believe we had temporarily passed into the 70s or early 80s.
This is the area behind a bank of computers receiving the signals from the telescopes.
I'm jealous of any man who gets to have nine monitors on his desk.
TELESCOPES!
Each telescope is located on one of three straight rail lines that meet at a central point. The telescopes can be moved anywhere on a rail line. Every four months, the telescopes are reconfigured; they are moved closer to each other and the center of the array (which gets a broader picture of the sky) or moved further apart from one another (which allows a more narrow picture of a portion of the sky). From a photography point of view, we were lucky. We visited when the telescopes were in their most compact configuration; all were pulled in to the center of the array. When the telescopes are in their most spread out configuration, I think each telescope is at least a couple miles from another. You'd only be able to get a few from each rail line in a single shot, unless you were really far away.
This gives a sense of scale of the telescopes. These things are huge.
Another shot of the array.
The telescope closest to the visitor center.
Shot of it from another angle.
Karen doing a pose from Contact.
Karen doing the second pose from Contact.
Me and a telescope.
Outtakes
Turns out aliens have a sense of humor.
Oh, a final note for the VLA. They do not, repeat, NOT, participate in SETI. The tour guides made sure to emphasize this, largely because they probably get that question a lot on every tour. It was literally the first question I heard when the tour started. "Where do you keep the aliens?" For my part, I signed my name and city of origin in the log book. For a comment, I wrote "They should have sent a poet." I'm sure they get sick of that one, too.
Socorro
Socorro is a small town. This surprised me, given that I had been seeing signs displaying the distance to Socorro for some time. I expected a medium/small city, at least. Back East, a town of Socorro's size would've only been listed on a few road signs when you came really close. It reminded me of my home town to some degree, though admittedly a bit larger.
We wandered the plaza, seeing what there was to see. Almost everything was closed, and there wasn't a soul in sight. This was Saturday afternoon, prime tourist-time, and even the visitor center was closed.
The major vibe I got in the city was that I had entered some sort of movie set that called for a "small-town" feel. We ducked into at a local coffee shop for a snack. We took our time deciding; the server made a dry quip about how busy it was (no had entered while we were deciding). After we ordered, locals involved in the local production of “You’re a good man Charlie Brown” kept strolling in. The employees cheerily discussed the upcoming play with each of them.
Elephant Butte
We arrived in Elephant Butte in the late afternoon. We set up camp on a rise overlooking the lake. Elephant Butte is a popular place to camp - the sites surrounding ours were all occupied with trailers and RVs. We were the only tent campers, though. I had never done any type of camping before, though I do love hiking. I was excited for this opportunity.
You could camp anywhere. Apparently the last time Karen was here, they camped on the beach (and got their car stuck in the sand). Given that I had only rented a Toyota Corolla, we didn't risk this and chose to make use of one of the established sites right off the road. These sites consisted of a small, rectangular buildings with walls on three sides and a roof, a perforated metal table and benches, and a fire pit.
Karen had borrowed a 5-person tent from some friends. It provided more space than necessary (at least, 8 people could hang out in it comfortably). The tent had mesh in the ceiling and walls, which was sort of cool - I was able to watch the moon crawl across the sky while I shivered later that night.
Sunset over the lake.
Clouds over a mountain at night.
A shot of the piers shortly after dark. During the warmer months, the lake is used for water sports.
Our campsite at night.
This was one of the trees near our site. Karen may have taken this shot - I was showing her how to use the tripod and camera.
Karen cooked us steak Fajitas for dinner. Somehow the chill in the air combined with the smell of cooking meat whet my appetite more than I would've expected. The Fajitas were excellent, probably the best meal I had this trip.
Karen poking the fire. It's amazing how quickly the temperature drops in the desert. Merely three hours earlier, I was wearing a t-shirt. By this point, I think I had three layers on.
I loved having a tripod for this trip. This was a 30 second exposure of the horizon.
Stars above our camp. You can clearly make out Orion in the center of the photo.
I really loved having a tripod and taking photos of the stars.
So, camping in New Mexico in early March is cold. This cannot be stressed enough, and is probably my biggest lesson from this trip. Karen had told me to wear layers. I didn't heed her advice as completely as I should have; I wore only a hoodie above my normal clothes. I'm pretty sure my socks had holes in them. When I first laid down to sleep, my feet were (understandably) cold. I took my blanket and wrapped it around my feet. Eventually, this sorta worked and I dozed off… when I woke, the moon had moved maybe a third across the sky, and my upper body was incredibly cold. I zipped up my bag further and tried to duck down. It’s amazing how much of a difference it made to create some sort of pocket in the sleeping bag to shield my face; merely exposing my face to the air was uncomfortably chilly.
So, in sum, the night was long and cold; still, it was a valuable experience and, looking back, I have to say that I'm glad I did it.
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