Road trip today, to Choride and beyond

Yesterday was a rest day; we didn't go anywhere, just relaxed, read and enjoyed the sunshine. Today was a different story.

We decided to revisit the little "town" of Chloride, a revived ghost town (for more info, click link Here). We'd been here a couple of times before, but this time were going to make a loop trip out of it.

Last night though, we had another nice little campfire with scrap wood from my woodworking days:

On the way to town we noticed a thoughtful reminder sign in one of the low spots that flood periodically::

 

On the way to Chloride we were amazed at the flowers in bloom. We've been here in the winter before, no flowers then that we can remember, as this is mainly high desert country:

We do find lovely roads to travel:

 

Looking back from where we came

Almost to Chloride, somebody decided to stop and settle here

The famous Chloride Hangin' Tree

 

Once back to to the main road (Rd 52) we continued North to make a loop. There was over 50 miles of gravel along the way to Rd 60, a long and dusty route:

We weren't sure this antelope was real

but he did move

Ranch land through here, scattered cattle herds

More dreams dried up and blown away

A large ranch along the way

This looked like a barn/line hut for the Wahoo ranch

Remember I said it was dusty? Well, here's Dusty NM, the whole "town"

These little gourds were close to tennis-ball size, just growing wild

Another antelope, pretty unafraid of the van

No sign of anyone that might get mail here

We started to see white structures out in the flat plains, not sure what they were. It turns out they make up a Very Large Array (VLA) that peeks out into space with huge coordinated radio-telescopes. There is information Here if you'd like to know more details.

We were able to get a tour of this fascinating facility, including a 24 minute video about it. You can see the video HERE if you're interested in learning more. 

The dishes are about 80 feet across

The same dish as the previous shot, dish is on the move

The dishes can be moved anywhere along 26 miles of track, in a Y shaped arrangement

 This array has been active since the 1980's, and the electronics etc have been almost totally rebuilt over the past 10 years.

Map of today's drive. Contrary to Google's estimate, the drive took us about 9 hours including the VLA tour, averaging about 20 Kph in the gravel stretches: