Nerdvember Day 11: Very Large Array

OakMonster - Very Large Array 2012

Inspiration: Our trip to the Very Large Array in 2012.

Components: VLA long-sleeve t-shirt. Star pennant.

#Nerdvember Day 11: #VLA. That was one awesome nerd road trip! #settostunning #notsostunning

A photo posted by oakley boren (@oakmonster) on

Back story: Brandon’s family lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s always been a debate when we head out there if we wanted to see along the drive out there. (He likes to drive.) Our first time driving out, we visited the Meteor Crater. This was our second trip, so we had to decide on our nerd destinations: the VLA which would take us a little bit further south, or Roswell and White Sands National Monuments which would be a lot more out of the way.  We went with the southern-ish route of Scottsdale, Sedona, Flagstaff, and the VLA.

Our Arizona leg of the trip went a lot faster than expected so we had time to kill in Flagstaff. I stumbled upon Lowell Observatory while searching for things to do. We started nerding out there with the telescope that discovered Pluto. (Clyde Tombaugh!) And we concluded the trip at one of the world’s most sophisticated radio telescopes in the world and, again, quite accidentally ended up on the exclusive tour of the facility! We were chatting up one of the docents and there happened to be a chairman’s special tour or something like that, and we got invited to go along. (“They drove here from California!”)

Anyways. What a wonderfully geeky trip to remember during Nerdvember. 🙂

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