Travels in August

My last month with England allowed me to get a bit off-route through some parts of the country I'd never seen before. I started the month in Fresno and headed back east.

This is the Very Large Array radio telescope in west central New Mexico. If you click on the photo and zoom in, you can see this is one of the three arms of multiple dishes in a row. It's a beautiful, desolate high valley completely surrounded by mountains, which is why this location is perfect for listening to radio signals from outside of Earth.

I spent a night in Roswell New Mexico, the Alien capital of the world (Google it if you haven't heard about this).

Even Walmart plays up the alien angle. Surprisingly, Roswell is a huge grower of Pecans. The northwestern outskirts of town are entirely covered by pecan tree orchards. Unfortunately, Roswell has been suffering from a great and long drought.

Abilene Texas where it was 104 degrees with almost no humidity. I biked eight miles into town and had to sip water every few minutes to keep my throat from getting stuck closed. This part of Texas is also suffering from the same drought. Very dry.

In Memphis I visited an ice cream and bike shop which was manufacturing and selling this hybrid electric bicycle.

A thunderstorm at sunrise in Oklahoma.

And I took a long lunch break just southwest of St.Louis and took a cave tour.