Very Large Array, Day 3

I was up and packed again before sunrise to get back to the VLA to shoot in the morning light.

It is hard to imagine how large the arrays are until you can put it into perspective.

Once the VLA visitor center opened up, I made my way there for the official self guided tour and to watch the interesting videos they have.

After the tour and some campsite lunch (there is no food at the VLA besides candy bars), I did some camera maintenance and took a nap in preparation for more night time photography. Waking up in the early evening, I drove closer to where I was going to shoot that night to see how the sky was developing. There were lots of clouds and some rain moving around the area. Those conditions can make for some nice evening and sunset images, but they can completely ruin any chances of Milky Way and stair trail photos.

Luckily, by 9:00pm the skies had cleared and I was able to get some more night shots in.

After finishing up at the array that night, I made a quick camp nearby and setup one last photo to take while I was sleeping.

Day 4 : VLA surrounding area and home
Miles: 512.2 mi
Trip Time: 8 hrs 16 min
Average Speed: 62 mph
Ascent: 9545 ft
Decent: 9772 ft

The 4th day was a straight shot home via the highway and Interstate. This short trip turned out to be quite fun and while not physically relaxing due to all the driving and weird hours I kept, getting out in nature and shooting some photographs always relaxes me mentally.

And now for the rest of the story… in photos.