pigfarmer wrote:
Wow Williebago! That does sound interesting but is it possiple to do? They are in opposite directions and miles apart. We figured a day for each.
unless something has changed all youโll need at Trinity is an hour or so. the VLA is about a 90-min drive.
pigfarmer:
We were waiting on the edge of the highway thirty minutes before they open the north gate to access the Trinity Site. Be sure and have a photo ID as your are entering a secure military base and they check those things. There is acres of desert parking and plan on a quarter of a mile hike on level terrain to the site itself. It is interspersed with exhibit plaques and the monument itself is a lava rock obelisk built on Ground Zero of the blast.
All kind of sobering if you really stop to think about it. Also, there is the farm stead about a mile and a half or so from ground zero that survived the blast and has been preserved by the Park Service. Be sure and go there as well. It is where they did some final assemble work on the core and has a framed copy on the bedroom wall of the letter from Einstein to President Roosevelt explaining why the Manhattan project was necessary and why we needed to be the first to develop the atomic bomb. If I remember correctly they say that a half day visit is the equivalent of a single dental Xray and less than a trans-continental airplane flight.
In all, if you are early on the site in the morning, you will be able to have lunch at the Owl Bar in San Antonio and have their world famous green chili cheeseburger. Then continue the drive to the VLA and spend the entire afternoon there. As I mentioned, it is the only place I know where you can be in the control room and look thru a glass wall at the massive super computer that processes all of the data the 27 radio telescopes collect. Fascinating! At the gift shop purchase a DVD of the movie contact with Jodie Foster and watch it that night in your RV.
We then drove back to the Bosque Birdwatchers RV park south of San Antonio but just north of the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge. Spent the next day there watching all of the sandhill cranes and geese in migration and hoping to see a rare Whooping crane that are occasionally there as well.
Do it, you won't regret it. And for those who have not been to White Sands add a couple of more days to your trip and spend there. Another amazing place in the "Land of Enchantment". Enjoy your trip.
[purple]WILLIEBAGO[/purple]
2019 Newmar Baystar 3626, F53, 252"WB with 6.8L gas engine
2003 Jeep Liberty Limited Toad
2 cockapoos, Jordy and Nelson, who love RVing
[purple]Go K-State Wildcats[/purple]
