Road Trip 2015 - #8 Datil

September 20, 2015 - Upon leaving Carlsbad, our goal was to work our way slowly across central New Mexico on our way to Sedona.  What we discovered was an area that we enjoyed as much as any other on our trip.

Of course, heading north from Carlsbad took us right into Roswell where we had to stop and look for aliens.  And we found some!

And they can laugh at themselves a little too...

At Roswell, we turned west and went in search of the perfect spot to vegetate for a few days.  We stopped at Socorro for supplies, drove through Magdalena, passed the VLA (which we knew we were coming back to) and arrived at Datil Wells, a small BLM campground - $5.00/night - that had community water and vault toilets.  

Back in the cattle driving days, they would bring herds from Arizona across central New Mexico to the railhead, about 100 miles.  Water was scarce so they drilled wells every 10 miles so the cattle would have water.  The wells are still operational and the campground water at Datil Wells BLM is supplied from one of these wells.  Pretty cool.

Datil Wells had extensive and well marked trails leading up and around the surrounding hills. Pretty of room for the dogs to run, gorgeous overlooks and the beginnings of our elevation acclimation process as we were camped at about 6,500 feet.

The VLA - Very Large Array - is worthy of a tour.  It is the location where the beginning of the movie Contact was filmed.  The Very Large Array is one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories.  It has 27 radio antennas in a Y-shaped configuration. Each antenna is 82 feet in diameter. The data from the antennas is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 22 miles across with the sensitivity of a dish 422 feet in diameter.   The antennas sit on reclaimed railroad tracks and can be moved in close to each other or far away depending on whether the scientists need micro or macro data.  

And of course they had stuff for us novices to play with.  

This just amazed us.  We could barely whisper into the antenna and could hear each other clearly.  Something about parabolas...whatever...it was cool.

The cloudy weather kept following us...

But we did get to use our solar set up for the first time and it worked magnificently.  Our batteries stayed charged and the only time the generator came on was to watch football at night.  The alien that followed us from Roswell approved too.

In the opposite direction of the VLA was Pie Town, NM.  How can you resist getting pie in a town called Pie Town.  I had a New Mexico Apple Pie which was apples, green chiles and pinon.  It was delicious.

On the way back we explored Forest Road 6A (need to remember that) and the Sawtooth Mountains.  A beautiful area!  We did have a minor truck issue when David backed into - a tree? - and bent the exhaust pipe into the spring.  What a noise we dealt with on the way home but it was easily fixed at the campground.

We made friends here!  The campground had a very small visitor area with WiFi which is where I went to scope out our next destination.  Heather was there doing the same thing.  Turns out that Heather and Tom are from Barre, Vermont - a town of less than 10,000.  Wow, I have a cousin, nephews and aunt and uncle who live in Barre!  That bit of commonality as well as them being early retirees like us, and ATV enthusiasts all lead to a fun evening of getting to know each other.  We truly hope to meet up with them again.