This is the Very Large Array, a drab name for the National Science Foundation's massive radio telescope. Where the Trinity Site represents the splitting of the atom, the VLA traces radio emissions from the heavens to figure out how atoms came together to form our universe.
It's a tech geek's dream site, a place where questions asked on the guided tour can be a little hard to follow. But the array itself is fascinating. When the dishes are pointed at the same spot, they act like a single 22-mile-wide radio telescope capable of seeing far into the past. Although the movie "Contact" was filmed here, these scientists are not trying to eavesdrop on other galaxies, as their fictional counterparts did in the film. Still, the visit had me contemplating the odds that we are the sole planet in the universe in which chemistry conspired to create life.
By the time the sun sinks to the tops of snow-flecked mountains, I've moved again, back down through the pass and south to San Antonio and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, a 57,000-acre sanctuary on the west bank of the Rio Grande that teems with birds settling in for the night. Given the hour and season, I have the place mostly to myself, and as I drive some of the dirt trails, I spot a great blue heron and several snowy egrets. Roadrunners keep pace with me, and ducks cross the sky on comically fast-flapping wings.
After a half-hour or so of meandering, I park near a wooden overlook at the edge of a pond and walk out to stand still and silent in the cool breeze, listening to the slight lapping of water and the conversations of birds.
As they splash, squawk and trill, I think about the VLA's role in our efforts to understand how this fragile world came together, and the Trinity Site's part in our efforts to blow it apart. This, I think, is what hangs in that delicate balance -- the wind, water and reeds, and the quiet setting of the sun.
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Seeing Trinity
GETTING THERE:
From LAX, Southwest offers nonstop service to Albuquerque, and America West, American, Delta, United, Northwest and Frontier offer connecting service (change of plane). Restricted round-trip airfares begin at $252. To El Paso, Texas, Southwest has direct service (stop, no change of plane), and the same airlines offer connecting service. Restricted round-trip airfares begin at $246.
From Albuquerque, Socorro is about 75 miles south on Interstate 25, and the White Sands Missile Range is a 45-minute drive east along U.S. 380.
