Arizona Trip; Day 7 (Silver City, NM to Socorro, NM)

Before I provide the important information from today, Chris insists that I include this little insignificant event from this morning: Just before leaving our motel I noticed my wedding ring was missing. We went back to the room and searched it with no success. Chris wanted me to inform the front desk that I possibly lost my ring in the room and ask them to call if it were located. I refused, confident that the room had been searched so the ring most definitely was not there. So Chris spoke to the front desk before we left. Later in the day they called to advise the ring was located in the room. Win some and lose some. Anyway they will be mailing my ring to our home so all is well that ends well, especially when Chris is right.

It was a cool 47 degrees but it was sunny when we rode away from Silver City, northbound on 180. The first 49 miles were backtracking from the evening before but it was a pretty route. We arrived at our first destination, the Catwalk National Recreation Trail located east of Glenwood at the end of 174.

A creek ran over the road just inside the entrance to the recreation area. It was running fairly deep and Carl and I were concerned that there was a severe dip half way across, which would be a problem for both my low riding Mustang and his Goldwing motorcycle. We thought about walking into the park but could not find a spot to get across the creek without getting very wet. A truck came along and crossed the creek, which showed us about how deep it was and that there was not a severe trough half way across. I drove the Mustang across with no problem. Carl followed on his Goldwing, also with no problem except that their pant legs got wet. I tried to photograph their crossing but failed to remove the lens cap. When we left the park I did get a series of photographs of Carl and Marge driving through the creek.

The Catwalk Trail was very cool. As the name would imply, there were catwalks attached to rock walls over the same creek we drove across further downstream. We had to walk about a half mile up the canyon to access the catwalks but it was a pretty area and an enjoyable hike.

It was close to lunch time when we left the Catwalk National Recreation Trail so Carl (he was leading today) was looking out for lunch locations. He happened upon Carmen’s Restaurant in the little burg of Reserve, NM. Lucky for us it was Taco Thursday so three of us enjoyed the tacos. Marge said her sandwich was good as well. This was the second day in a row for a LARRAPIN good lunch in an out-of-the-way little place.

Our next stop was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory VLA (Very Large Array) located about 50 miles west of Socorro, NM. I had never been here and was impressed with the operation. It was very interesting but much of the information was way over my head. I have no concept of what 30 million light years represents. I did learn that radio waves are long light waves. This big system of satellites collects light transmissions from way out (30 million light years) in space. The NRAO computers take all this data and translates it to useful information. AMAZING! We enjoyed visiting this site but the wind was brutal. It was difficult holding the camera still.

We stopped for the night in Socorro, NM. The high temperature today, 65 degrees, was achieved as we were entering Socorro. The rest of the day was in the 50’s and there were occasional droplets of water falling from the sky but not so much as it made the roads wet. The top was up all day.

miles traveled today:    252

     trip miles to date: 2,060

To see all the photos taken today click on the following link: Day 7 Photos