Awake 5:45am Temp 47 Clear & windy Overnight @ Socorro, N.M.
@ 8:50am, we drive up to Magdalena, N.M.(40 min) with an elevation of 7000
ft & do a sneak preview driving tour of the town. In it's heyday, the
population spiked to over 14,000, today it's about 1,100. The early yrs of
mining: lead, zinc, silver & smithsonite plus having a stockyard & being a
railhead town, put this place on the map. As we drive around, we see many
vacant bldgs, house for sale signs, boarded up homes, large bldgs using
one room as an office, etc. There is more to see in this historic town of
Magdalena but, for now, we continue driving West.
25 miles West of Magdalena & across the level plains of desert @ 7000 ft,
we begin to see the VLA area. Operating since 1981, this VERY LARGE ARRAY
of 27 dish antennas are spread out like a "Y" to focus on radio waves from
space. Open to the public, we spend 40 min watching a movie of how & why.
Then, thru wind and blowing snow, we walk to one antenna and do a self
tour of it to appreciate its size & see the transporter machine up close.
The 27 antennas are placed on 3 13 mile long legs & are movable on rail by
the transporter. Each antenna is 94 ft tall, weighs 235 tons(470,000 lbs)&
is 82 ft in diameter. Their aluminum panels are formed into a parabolic
dish which enables the antennas to focus radio waves into a wave guide
which is then analyzed by computers & computer operators. It's all very
scientific of course & operated by the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory. There were several movies made here. The one I've seen
staring Jodie Foster called "Contact" was Science Fiction & interesting.
During our outdoor self tour the temp was 42 with a wind chill of ? (very
cold to Kathy, the fake Alaskan) and a few snow squalls...we thought we
were back in Alaska again.... a chilling experience!
Back to Magdalena: we get the keys & do a self tour of the town's museum(a
railroad box car), with pictures & period items relating to the earlier
days of the old West, cattle drives to the rail head, cowboys, miners,
Native Americans, pioneer families, etc. Then we visit their library which
is in the old train depot building(5 steps from the box car museum). The
city offices also share the train depot. We are curious about the mining
town of Kelly, only 3 miles South of Magdalena where the only building
still standing is the Catholic Church which is still maintained.
Our SUV Suzuki easily climbs the hills to the Kelly mine....at least 700
ft higher than Magdalena. Sure enough, the Catholic church is well
preserved & locked up. Nearby, many foundations can be seen of the homes &
buildings of yesteryear. We walk around & casually search for pieces of
this mineral called Smithsonite. Originally the Kelly mine tossed aside
this mineral during their mining for lead, zinc & silver, but when the
mine ran out of those precious metals, a guy by the name of Brown shipped
a few samples of this mysterious rock to an assayer in Missouri. The
results came back & the long ignored green rock turned out to be a rare &
valuable mineral. Needless to say, our search turned up nothing even close
to this beautiful green, valuable rock. We did enjoy the ghost town
surroundings however & the exercise & a great view.
Back to the bus for 7:00pm Dinner: Leftover ham, broccoli, peppers,
leftover sweet potatoes & fresh mixed salad.
No movies tonight. Today's high=60 Lights out: 10:30pm
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