Days 13 & 14: Sept 7th & 8th- New Mexico

Very Large Array- Socorro, NM

The drive to the Very Large Array was scenic enough to make it worthwhile. The tour of the VLA itself yielded some cool satellite dish photos, why I'm so thrilled about them I can't even really explain. I think radio astronomy is interesting. There was a cool little tour and film in the visitor's center, and we got to walk out to one of the (27) dishes. Fernando was patient while I snapped pics and ordered him to take some of me exactly as I wanted. By this point in the trip we were pretty relaxed about everything, so it was great. This was the first time that we had an actual rainy day and we enjoyed the moisture.

http://www.vla.nrao.edu/

Later that night, we drove through Roswell, NM. This was another sort of minor stop I wanted to make. I didn't really know what to expect. I guess I was hoping that maybe a UFO would drop in while we happened to be passing through. None did, but we found the UFO museum for a photo opp. We also got a pic of the Alien Head streetlights but it didn't turn out well.

Day 14- Carlsbad Caverns
Carlsbad, NM

http://www.nps.gov/cave/

This turned out to be a pretty anti-climactic photo journey since I wasn't prepared at all for taking cave pics. As you can see, these are pretty bad! I didn't take the tripod into the cave and even though there was some lighting, I got nearly nothing with or without the flash. Since then, I Googled "Cave Photography" and read up on that. :-)

The caves were so vast, I don't know how to convey that, or if I even could with this camera. What did get captured doesn't come close to showing the total awe of the place. I got an overwhleming peaceful feeling from it, like being at a spa. The air was really pleasant even though it seems heavy and old. It felt really good breathing it in.

Fernando and I were one of the last groups down the shaft in the elevator, 750 feet down. The cave was drier than I was expecting, and the temperature (56F) was cool but felt great. The trail is basically a circle aroung "The Big Room" (http://www.nps.gov/cave/tour-br.htm) for which they allot an hour but we did it in two. At first, people were kind of rushing past and in the way. There were some little kids in one of the groups ahead who were at that age when it's fun to scream, especially when the sound is amplified like it would be inside a cave. But most of the old folks had dropped out and fell back to the starting point, so we walked slowly and hung back, until eventually we were like the last people on the trail. It became quiet and peaceful and transcended just a walk in a cool dark rock room. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me.

To cap the whole thing off, we got to watch the daily sunset Batflight out of the natural mouth of the cave. I'd like to go back and do that hike, which is 5 or 6 hours, and more of a challenge than the meditation-inducing effect the Big Room had on me. The bats didn't turn out well in the pics, but it was really peaceful and relaxing watching them swirl out. I was expecting a big bat ruckus but it wasn't like that at all.

The guy in the pic above with Fernando is from British Columbia. He was doing a zig zag across North America in a big motor home with earth-toned decor. It was kind of 70's and very groovy. His final destination was Mexico, and he had been going alone ever since Niagara Falls. Poor guy!

Day 15- Friday, Sept 9th

After leaving the caverns we drove for 32 hours straight through to Ft Lauderdale. We went through Meridian, MS; Selma & Montgomery, AL to bypass the wake of Katrina and still found a lot of wind damage even north of the gulf coast.