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A long, but good day of riding. I set out from Springerville, AZ at a reasonable time and hit the New Mexico border (and lost an hour to daylight savings) soon thereafter. My first stop was on the Continental Divide, in a place called Pie Town. Guess what I had for brunch? New Mexican Apple Pie, which adds green chile for spice and pinon nuts for texture. Pretty tasty!
Next, I made a stop at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array, a set of 27 large, movable radio telescopes. They're pretty cool to look at. They were re-aiming quite a bit while I was there, but not being moved from place to place.
I stopped at The Owl Bar in San Antonio, NM for lunch. The green chile cheeseburger was pretty good. As the story goes, the Manhattan Project scientists used to eat there while working at the Trinity site nearby. Outside the Owl, a guy noticed my luggage and its stickers and came up and asked me where my bike had been. It turns out he's done motorcycle touring in 26 countries since he started in 1956. We swapped stories for a while.
On the way out of town, I stopped by the highway marker for the Trinity site. The actual site is in the middle of the White Sands Missile Testing Range, and is only open to the public twice a year, so I didn't get to see ground zero.
I pulled in to Alamogordo, checked in to a motel, and hurried to White Sands National Monument. I arrived a full 7 minutes before sunset, when they close the entrance. For this visit, I just did a quick loop along the dunes road and enjoyed the sunset views.
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