In the middle of New Mexico, just past PieTown you might think Aliens have taken root. You come up over the horizon through some spectacular mountains and there in the middle of the desert floor, where cows should be grazing you will see 27 radio antennas in a Y shaped configuration – The Very Large Array. We had to stop! It is just too weird plus we had been driving for several hours without a break. Paul was fascinated, me I was sure someone was going to start telling me about the Aliens taking over! I am definitely not a believer and this is New Mexico. It was very cool and even I learned something new today! Inside one of these dishes you could place 2 of our homes side by side!
Very Large Array
27 Radio Antennas
422 feet in diameter
Very Small Array!!!
From here we did a lot more driving. We finally hit an interstate, Interstate 25 at Socorro, NM and drove on it south for about 3 miles before heading towards Ruidoso, NM. The problem with this was Paul didn’t see any fueling stations that met his requirements in Socorro and we thought we would see more before we left the Interstate but there were not any and we were down to less than 1/2 of a tank, 30 gallons and we were not sure the next town had any. We can go about 200 miles with that much fuel except we had no idea about the roads and I could see from the map we had to go over a pretty high pass, the top was 12,000 feet although the road didn’t get anywhere near that high. The good news is we found fuel wih about 15gallons of fuel left! That is not much fuel for something this big and traveling these roads. Paul said we were fine, I don’t think so cause after we got the 57 gallons of fuel we went over the pass and it was long and steep!
We found the Elks Lodge in Ruidoso and Paul was so happy cause we parked on their grass and got to have a beer with the locals!