Places of Interest...

When you travel, you usually have a start point and a destination. Things along the way are a bonus to get to the end of the trip. The more you see the better the experience. I love to travel. I always have. Since I was a kid it was drilled into my being because my father was in the Navy and we didn't stay at one place for more than 2 years up until I was 7. If you think that 7 years isn't that long... ask your 7 year old son/daughter, neice/nephew. I lived in 5 places before I was in 3rd grade. Now I'm not saying I resented it. I believe it made me appreciate all that there is on the journey. I can't ever recalling myself or my siblings ever saying " Are we there yet???"

Over the Christmas holiday of 1999, the family made a trip down to Las Cruces, NM to spend Christmas with my sister-in-law and her family. We were there 4 days and I really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed the journey more, no offense to Tim and Beth. Along the way, there were places I wanted to see. I only was able to see one. The VLA at Socorro. I have a certain interest in things involving science fiction, (Call me a fucking dork) If you do not know what the VLA is... I'm going to tell you.

The VLA (Very Large Array), one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, consists of 27 radio antennas in a Y-shaped configuration on the Plains of San Agustin fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico. Each antenna is 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter. The data from the antennas is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 36km (22 miles) across, with the sensitivity of a dish 130 meters (422 feet) in diameter.

If you have seen the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster, a large part of the movie is filmed at the VLA. When I suggested it to Marnie that we stop and check it out, she thought they were home satellite dishes like DirectTV or something like that. I tried to explain to her what they were and how big they actually were. She wasn't too happy to find that we had to drive 50 miles out of the way to go see them. I think she was impressed at the size of them when we could see them from the highway. After I told her that there wasn't any type of charge to see them, things were good. You don't realize how big they are until you actually see them. It was a great experience for me.

Another place I would have loved to see while down there was the "Trinity" site. The "Trinity" site is the place that the first atomic bomb was detonated. Unfortunately, they have limited tours at specific times of the year.

While in Las Cruces that Christmas, we thought that there would be absolutely no chance of snow and that it would be weird to have Christmas with it being warm... Of course knowing us, shit just doesn't happen the way we think it's going to happen... It snowed 2 inches on Christmas Eve in Las Cruces.

Well... GNite all...

Eric