Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By the time I make Albuquerque … I’ll be exhausted. Today has been another long travel day. We were on the road for about seven hours and covered 430 miles. We exited Oklahoma, crossed Texas’ top hat, and traveled through New Mexico to Albuquerque. The good news is that we’re officially “out west” and will start staying in the same location more that one night to allow for proper sightseeing. During our ride today, we reminisced about our trip here two years ago when we visited Old Town ABQ and Sandia Peak and also made a trip to Santa Fe.
Okie Sunrise from the RV
Our Private Lunch Spot behind the Toot ’n Totum
Entering New Mexico
After finally arriving at the Albuquerque KOA Journey, we drove another couple of miles around the one-way campground loops trying to find Site D2 while heading the right direction to pull through. Our efforts were worthwhile as the site is level with a nice patio, table, and fire pit. We relaxed and then Jane managed to finally fix our water leak while I was able to finally post yesterday’s blog after many failed attempts back in Oklahoma.
As our appetites grew, Jane searched online and found a promising establishment for dinner, The 377 Brewery. So, she drove us in the toad there and in fact, we had a great tasting dinner with good beer. Upon returning to our RV site, we sat outside at the table for awhile enjoying the pleasant weather before retreating indoors and chilling out before bedtime.
Our Site at the ABQ KOA Campground
Outside The 377 Brewery
Flighty Janie (the raspberry dynamite was delicious)
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Rambling Thoughts
Recently, I’ve been humbled hearing about the accomplishemnts and challenges of a fellow traveler, Voyager I. This spacecraft, launched by NASA in 1977, was gravatationally slung through our solar system by a rare alignment of the outer planets and sent back amazing picutres (and data) of Earth’s kinfolk. Currently, it is 15 billion miles from its home planet. During the 46 years of its journey, I have finished my undergraduate, masters and PhD degrees, got married, completed a professional career, and retired. Meanwhile, this little bugger has entered interstellar space and keeps on cruising ever deeper into the cosmos.
However, several months ago, the aging Voyager began sending garbled, then no messages, back to Earth. Eventually, NASA scientists determined that a portion of Voyager’s memory had become defective. They developed software to avoid using the bad memory and performed brain surgery from billions of miles away via messages that take almost a whole day to travel one way. This fix worked and Voyager is once again communicating coherently and sending its regular data deliveries. I’m amazed that this farthest-flung human-made object in the universe can still be useful to those of us back on its home planet. Eventually, its communication are going to fail but this supreme traveler will still carry the Golden Record containing sounds and images that describe our species and planet in case it is ever intercepted by intelligent beings in the future.
Ramble on, Voyager!
Voyager (NASA/JPL photo)