Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Adventure Trip 2011 Day 3

5-31-11

Today has been such a great day!

Right now, I'm laying down, writing in our tent. I might add, I'm laying down on a very comfortable air mattress which we exchanged today. Ahhhh.
It's supposed to be 12:10am, but it's actually only 10:10pm. Pacific time I think...

We started out the day from Socorro, New Mexico at around 9am after breakfast and a quick camp breakdown.
We were looking for the VLA and found it! Actually you can't miss it driving on highway 60. Those dishes are HUGE!!
We got out at different points around the compound and took a load of pics. I also went inside the visitor's center and got some pamphlets before we hit the road again, bound for Arizona.







It was weird , as SOON as we crossed the border, everything got sort of foggy, hazy.



Turns out, brush fires were running amuck everywhere. We never actually saw the fires, but the smoke and stench went on for 30 or 40 miles. This area, as well as a LOT of the southwest is under a really bad drought. In fact, we were told that Carlsbad, NM hasn't had any rain in over a year! Really bad fire conditions...
After a while, the air finally cleared and things were looking up. We stopped of at the Petrified forest and Painted Desert national parks and took some pics. Good stuff.



Eventually we made it to Sedona. WOW.
Absolutely stunning! Beautiful red rock cliffs everywhere. The sunset was amazing...






We learned a little something here:
The best place to find out about campsites and places to go is from the local tour guide.
That guy really filled us in. We ended up driving into the mountains and have witnessed some AMAZING scenery! Right out of a western...
Gotta have a 4x4! Woohoo!!

We have a beautiful campsite overlooking Sedona. I plan on getting some night shots of the city later tonight.

Ok... Gotta crash.

Night


KoP


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