Driving Across the United States day 4

The fourth day started with a trip to see White Sands National Monument which is contained within the Army’s White Sands Missile Range. That point is important because when we arrived at the park around 8:30AM, we were told that the road in wouldn’t open until 9:45 due to a missile test at the surrounding range. Immediately upon entering the park, you are surrounded by brilliant white sand in the form of dunes covered with desert vegetation. In short order, the vegetation subsides leaving nearly naked alabaster mounds surrounding the park road. Even from atop the dunes, the only thing visible is the white sand and the mountains surrounding the Tularosa Basin.

After seeing White Sands, we drove back through Alamogordo North to Carrizozo, NM, West to Socorro, NM and further to the Very Large Array. The 25 meter radio telescopes at the VLA are individually huge and the array is something to behold even in the medium configuration that we saw, with only a few hundred meters between them. What’s more striking is to see the enormous size that the telescopes can be arranged as each of the railroad track arms is 25 kilometers long. Thankfully, the VLA was courteous enough to put this in terms very easy for a Washingtonian to understand.

After seeing all of that, we headed to Albuquerque and had dinner at a standard city brewpub, Kelly’s near the univeristy. Driving through the city was very nice, as the facades throughout town are all very entertaining to see.