“TOE OF SATAN” was one of the ghost chili pepper sauces in the “over 18 tasting room”, warning it would “melt your face off” due to 9 million Scoville units of heat. Given the cold outside and all the brew pubs nearby in the Texas Hill Country, many people were not shy about “getting their sweat on” with some tasting. Llano TX also had some iconic dry rub BBQ brisket coming out of huge cookers alongside sausages, ribs, pork roasts…all by the pound and with lots of friendly, communal picnic tables and endless napkins.
Our continuing Southwest road trip, though now veering north and west toward home, continued to provide great federal access free camping as above, and strange local art installations like this concrete Stonehenge in a field in Texas Hill Country…
…and amazing sights like White Sands National Monument that is entirely gypsum based sand dunes so it looks like you are driving through a snowy landscape. Not so good for birding, however!
Snow flurries dogged us through New Mexico and gave us solitude at the VLA: “VERY LARGE ARRAY” (radio telescope facility) near Socorro, NM. 27 huge portable radio telescope dishes are set on rail lines up to 23 miles apart at the maximum array, and tilt their dishes all at once in the same direction every six hours to focus on a different area of the sky for research purposes. Moving the dishes on rail lines allows 6 different configurations for viewing. Brand new galaxies similar to our own are forming and can be seen with this massive tool capturing gamma ray and x-ray images. The images of the “burps” of flaming gas emitting from supernova black holes is dramatic! Set in a huge flat basin, the surrounding mountains block electric transmission so these dishes collect data 24 hours a day, not needing darkness and clear skies like an optical telescope. We appreciated this as we had to cancel both reservations for star viewing parties at both MacDonald and Lowell Observatories due to cloud cover.
Upon reaching the very touristy Sedona, AZ the back edge of the cold front finally reached us with blizzard conditions. We got to Flagstaff on the heels of a snowplow and hunkered down in a motel for 2 days to let the roads clear. It made our visits to Sunset Crater and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon just so pristine and beautiful in the snow. What a treat!
The trip west thereafter was pretty uneventful…which is a good thing after the challenges of federal facility closures, blizzards, being towed for repair, and leaving some of our portable home on the desert floor. Uneventful is good.