I have been twice, and the second time I was fortunate enough to be with a group (my school) who was permitted a tour of the control room and the correlator (parallel computing) room. There was a hallway with a chalkboard laying out the operating plan for 1991, and in a corner was scrawled "Jody was here", although I doubt it was her (she was the actress who played the main character in *Contact*, a film partially set and shot at the VLA, and who narrates the Vimeo video [so the description says, I am having buffering problems]; Anybody who saw *2010: Odyssey Two *also saw the VLA, in the opening scenes).
Next weekend I am going to the New Mexico SuperComputing Challenge KickOff in Socorro, which is near the VLA (though the array itself is closer to the town of Magdalena, a short drive away but certainly not within reasonable walking or even casual biking distance, and you have to go a bit past Magdalena even to get to the array; probably the best descriptor of where it is would properly be "on the San Agustin plains".) so it is a shame it will be closed. The Y-arrangement of the [large] dishes is impressive even when seen from outside the gates, though. It is a couple hours from ABQ depending on conditions, and one more from Santa Fe, so you would not just spontaneously drop in for a visit, but when it reopens it is probably worth setting aside a free day to see. -Arlo
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