
Bandera
Volcano and VLA
We worked so hard during
December and January (1999) that we decided to do something else next weekend.
So, we took our car and drove to the north NM...
We drove very early
morning because we couldn't sleep. First we visited an Ice Cave , it's
actually a small cave with a small icy lake inside. One can just see it
from the bridge but can't go inside. It's not exciting and don't worth
visiting but it's still registered in the National
Cave Directory. Can you believe it?
Anyway we liked a
nature there. It is like in South Ural with small mountains, pine trees
and others. This nature is very different from the Las Cruces desert. And
it's much colder there too. We saw old volcano crater with pieces of lava
around that place.
On the back way we
visited Astronomical laboratory which has 27 big radio telescope antennas
in the one area. It's very strange view. Imagine the big field with many
giant dishes around. If you saw "Contact" movie you should remember they
showed all these antennas. Each antenna stands on the special platform
which can be easily moved. It allows to have different configurations depending
on the research area. We stood very close to it, we could almost touch
it...