Our first stop today was the VLA. Very Large Array (think Contact with Jodi Foster 1997). There are 28 satelite dishes in a 55 mile wide deserted valley. They listen day and night to space and gather radio frequencies to help build a picture of other galaxies some of which are over 30 million light years away. They can "see" super nova explosions and black holes sucking in stars. Seriously smart people work here, over 200 of them, listening to space day in and day out. The computers that gather the data are the worlds largest super computers. They do something like 16 trillion calculations per second. You have to turn your cell phone off on the property so that your cell signal doesnt interfere with the radio frequencies. Cool place to geek out. Would be even cooler at night to star gaze.
Whereas the states to the north of here offered fields of corn and soy beans, here you get fields of cows and Yucca plants. Most of the vegetation here looks like it wants to hurt you. Everything is pokey, spiney, and sharp. However, we did find something that looked like squash plants growing wild on the side of the road. Would have made a good dinner if we got lost I suppose. After miles and miles of deserted desert roads we arrived in Silver City, NM. We had hoped to have lunch along the way, but apparently only 20 people live along the 300 miles between Socorro and Silver City. Just them, the mexican wolves, and the foxes with rabies.
We had hoped to go to Gila (pronounced with an H) Cliff Dwellings this afternoon, but when my phone went off with a severe thunderstorm / flash flood warning, we decided to ride it out in the hotel. Well have to adjust tomorrows day to fit it in. We did take a nice walk downtown in the art district. Everything in this town is from the 1800's: some very cool history here. Like when the town was nearly wiped from the map when a 12 foot tall, 300 feet wide wall of water came from up the mountain (see thunderstorm warning above).
Our day was completed with dinner at the Buckhorn Saloon. Built in 1886 or something crazy, its still original. Incredible food and service topped off with the best dessert. A flag near our table was flown there when there were only 46 stars and New Mexico was a territory still.
Death clouds are surrounding the valley tonight and lightning is striking outside our window. Hoping that as we move away from the mountains it will lighten up a bit tomorrow. Im not hiding in the stairwell yet so we're doing ok. :-)
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