Today’s Mileage: 389 miles
Total Trip Mileage so far: 2471 miles
I woke up to a beautiful and chilly morning in Socorro – I had to break out the electric vest to keep warm, amazing, since by the end of this day I would be down to the mesh jacket because the heat. The elevation here in Socorro is about 5000 or more feet. I would spend most of the day at higher elevations and cooler temperatures before dropping down into the Phoenix area and heat. I headed out Route 60 for about 50 miles over to the VLA, then continued on Route 60 through the Cibola and Sitgreaves National Forests and the towns of Datil and Show Low (wonder how they got that name?). Then I took 260 thru Payson and the Tonto National Forest and finally 87 into the North side of Phoenix. I decided to brave the Phoenix area to visit my friends Don and Todd. We would be having breakfast and a visit on Monday morning.
Stopped for a neat visit to the VLA. The VLA was featured prominently my favorite movie, “Contact”. I met a group of French tourists doing the walking tour at the same time. Had a very good time trying to communicate…While we where there they repositioned the dishes – really impressive thinking about what they might be looking for that morning, maybe ET? After a fun tour with the French group we all headed out to the highway. On the way out, we had to stop and wait for a herd of Elk to cross the road – by the time I got my camera out they were gone – a nice touch for the morning. Now on West to Phoenix!
VLA Panorama
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- Arriving at VLA
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- ET Phone Home!
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- VLA view from highway
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- Entering Arizona
