Who can resist more airplanes? 🙂
Postcard From Tucson, Arizona
Tag Archives: Postcards
Postcard From Space?
So what is the Very Large Array, you ask? From Wikipedia:
The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, 50 miles west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twenty-eight 25-meter radio telescopes (27 of which are operational while one is always rotating through maintenance) deployed in a Y-shaped array and all the equipment, instrumentation, and computing power to function as an interferometer. Each of the massive telescopes is mounted on double parallel railroad tracks, so the radius and density of the array can be transformed to adjust the balance between its angular resolution and its surface brightness sensitivity.[2] Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way’s center, probed the Universe’s cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical mechanisms that produce radio emission.
The VLA stands at an elevation of 6,970 feet above sea level. It is a component of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). The NRAO is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Postcard From White Sands, New Mexico
We only spent a few hours here – one afternoon and one morning. But my oh my what a wonderful place!
In case anyone wonders, what looks like haloing between the sky and the dune is actually blowing sand!
Postcard From Marfa, Texas
It was quite an eventful day and it’s late. But here is one tidbit from first thing this morning.
Prada Marfa is a permanent sculptural art installation by artists Elmgreen and Dragset, located 1.4 miles northwest of Valentine, Texas, just off U.S. Highway 90, and about 26 miles northwest of the city of Marfa. The installation, in the form of a freestanding building—specifically a Prada storefront—was inaugurated on October 1, 2005. The artists described the work as a “pop architectural land art project.”
Postcard From Big Bend National Park
I’m skipping a few stops but this one was too good to wait on. Kathy & I visited Big Bend National Park today. What a spectacular place – we had no idea! This is just one photo that hardly represents the entirety of the place, only just one part. But since (for us) the point was getting to the Rio Grande, it represents that goal. I’ll post more once we get home, but it has been a busy trip so far!
Postcard From Johnson City, Texas
Kathy & I visited the LBJ Ranch National Historical Park near Johnson City. This is the “Texas White House,” home of President Lyndon Johnson and used as an offsite location for Johnson during his presidency.
Postcard From Hye, Texas
Howdy from Hye!
We had an adventurous couple of days in the Hill Country of Texas. Headed tomorrow to the Rio Grande Valley region for some more scenery. Lots of photos, so little time for processing!
Postcard From Nalcrest, Florida
What would it be like to be the letter carrier for a community full of retired letter carriers? That’s a bit of a running joke in Nalcrest, that is a retirement community exclusively for retired mail carriers. Nalcrest was designed by and continues to be operated by the Nalcrest Foundation, Inc., a branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers, the union representing United States Postal Service city letter carriers. It was the brainchild of William Doherty, the first United States Ambassador to Jamaica and NALC President from 1941–1962.
The community consists of 253 acres, 153 acres of which are developed into 500 garden-style apartments. The remaining 100 acres (0.4 km2) are undeveloped and includes a manmade lake of 15 acres around which the community is developed, and that is connected to the 7,500 acre Lake Weohyakapka.
We have friends who spend the winter there, and this is the third year we have visited. It’s an interesting place with many friendly people from all over the US and Canada. But you won’t find any dogs or cats. Evidently the story about dogs and mail carriers not getting along is true. 😉
Postcard From Lake Placid, Florida
Known as the Town of Murals, Lake Placid has over 40 murals dedicated to scenes, important events and notable people from the town’s history. More to follow later!
Postcard From O’Brien, Florida
Kathy & I were tired of the (relative) cold and decided to make a quick escape to warmer climes. We have friends in central Florida who give us a good excuse to head that way, so we left home on Friday for about 10 days. I had found this old feed store on some website or another and had it saved in my map folder. Today we were close enough to make a slight detour and check it out. I found a few other interesting scenes nearby that I’ll share over the next few days or when we get back home.
In the meantime it was a sunny and toasty 70 at one point during the day. Yay for heat! 🙂
