A Greater Crater

About 35 miles west of Flagstaff is the Meteor Crater. Its a big crater where a meteor thought to have been 150' across crashed into the Arizona desert thousands of years ago.  We've heard of it so it's a great opportunity to check it out. There is lots of astronaut memorabilia here because the astronauts who were going to the moon were trained here on how to spot the right type of rocks and also how to get around. Apparently the surface of the crater is quite similar to the moons surface. 

This is the biggest piece of the original meteor which hit here. Its was found about 2 miles away and they believe that the meteor was breaking up before impact. 

Through the application of modern technology, Grammie has been transported to the crater floor. 

After her return, we took a guided hike along the crater rim and learned more about the impact and history of the crater.  

Its hard to believe that a space rock could make such a big hole. It must have been an exciting place when the meteor hit. 

This is considered the most pristine meteor crater in the world. There are lots larger but none are visible like this. Most have filled up with soil or water over the centuries. 

In the early 20th century, a geologist started a company to dig out the meteor from the centre of the crater. It was believed that there was millions of dollars of iron in the meteor and he would smelt it and sell to the railroad which was coming through. He spent over 20 years drilling holes in the crater floor and never found anything. Scientists now believe that the meteor was vapourized  on impact.

This is a closer picture of the drilling area. The crater has filled up with about 250' of sand and topsoil over the centuries so they had to drill below that level. White sand was below that level so wherever they drilled, piles of white showed. Those two black things are equipment left behind from the drilling when they stopped in the 1930's. 

The man who formed the company to drill here lived in this stone house until drilling stopped. It was used as a small museum until the wind blew the roof off in a 180 mile an hour wind a few years ago. Nice view out the back. 

On our guided hike, the guide told us of this plant, called the Mormon Tea plant. Mormons used to live in the area before moving to Utah. They weren't allowed to drink tea or coffee so they brewed up their own drink from this plant. Its now been found to have 10 times more caffeine than tea or coffee. The guide figured all that caffeine was what enabled them to have so many wives. 

From the crater you can see the mountains near Flagstaff where we're staying. Except for the crater, the land around is very flat. 

This is a bit better view on the drive home.

I took this picture using the panorama feature on my camera. Its the only way I could get the whole crater in. Its over a mile wide and deep enough to hide the Empire State building. And don't forget that about 250' has been filled in over the years. For perspective, the flat area of the floor could hold 20 football fields. A force equal to over 2000 megatons made this crater. 200 times larger than any atomic bomb.

I've taken this video to try to show the size of the crater. At the end of the video, those small boulders down in the crater are bigger than houses. Its hard to get perspective with nothing to compare the sheer size to.

Grand Canyon

One of the main reasons we decided to risk the weather and stay in Flagstaff (its over 7500' in altitude and gets snow this time of year) was so we could go see the Grand Canyon. Its about an hours drive north of Flagstaff. The western road is windy through forests and is a lovely drive. 

We've all heard of the Grand Canyon and even though Grammie and I have traveled through this area a few times, we've never seen it. We've seen a lot of wonderful sights and wasn't expecting much, just a big ditch. But, it's just somewhere you have to go see. After walking up a trail from the parking lot, we rounded a corner and this is what we saw. Our jaws dropped. We've never seen anything as awesome. 

We were finally able to take our eyes off the awesome view long enough to have our picture taken. Notice we have our winter coats on. Its below freezing and the wind is bitter. We were told to dress warm and we're glad we did. 

At various places along the rim are lookouts where you can get the best views of the big ditch. Its over 10 miles across where I'm standing and thousands of feet deep. 

There are hundreds of miles of hiking trails. Some will take you right down to the canyon floor but, at 7000' we're not going to go too far down. Not as high as Machu Picchu, but you can still feel the lack of air here. 

One of the great things about the canyon is that they've kept it as pristine as possible. There has been no development of any kind below the rim. That means that even the hiking trails are very basic with no guard rails of any kind. Where I'm standing, it's straight down for thousands of feet. I can't believe they don't lose a few people every year.

Hopefully you can see the trail below. It goes from where I was standing to the valley floor. Its a goats path that's miles long with lots of switchbacks. We might have gotten to the bottom but I can't see us ever getting back up. 

There is a hiking trail which follows the rim of the canyon for miles and goes from one fabulous lookout point to another. We spent most of the day hiking the rim trail. There was a lot of up and down but nothing too strenuous. The views were fantastic and the hike well worth it. 

There are no guard rails along this path either. With the wind blowing strong, you don't stand too near the edge unless you hang onto something. Based on this tree, it looks like the wind blows over the rim a lot. 

There are numerous lookouts along the rim trail and they have guard rails. Usually the lookouts are jutting out over the canyon and are quite narrow. Grammie would never have gone near the edge if there hadn't been a rail there. In the distant centre lies the Colorado river which carved all of the Grand Canyon over millions of years. Its hard to believe that one river did all that. Just look at that puny little stream and all those big hills. Just for perspective though, the part of the river we can see is over 100' wide and the rapids in the centre are over 20 feet high. 

At the end of the trail is a stone building with lunch counter so we stopped here. You won't get this kind of view in any other cafeteria. To save congestion and pollution, free buses drive the whole south rim so after walking the trails, we hopped a bus back. Appreciated sitting for awhile.

That's what most of the lookouts are like. Isn't that awesome? With all our travels, we thought we might be getting a bit jaded until we saw this. The Grand Canyon sounds like such a cliche tourist trap but we were totally blown away. They've done an excellent job of preservation and it still looks like it must have long before man came. We give it a ten. 

Taking the east road back to Flagstaff was totally different from the one we came on. Nothing but desert and canyons. All in all, a great day for seeing mother nature in all her glory.

I have attached a video that hopefully you can open. Its hard to get the full perspective of the Grand Canyon in a picture so I thought I'd try a video. See what you think.

Phoenix and Area

We had a wild storm in Casa Grande the night before we left. The next morning, it was dark and cloudy and cold but the rain held off and the wind had died down, so off we went. Not before it poured on me while I was hooking up the car of course. Wet drive but the 50 mile an hour winds of yesterday stayed away. The sun was shining when we arrived at our resort in Phoenix.  

Nothing special about our site other than its about twice as wide as most places we have stayed. The first few days were cold but right now its 85F. 

Here's something you don't see at every campground. An abandoned horse racing track just behind the resort. Apparently built in 1966 and went bankrupt in 1970. The land is owned by the campground but there aren't any plans to park RV's in it yet. This is about 5 miles west of Phoenix.

After settling in for a day or so, its time to get out and see some countryside. We've been told that the town of Sedona is something to see so we're going to. This area has many mountain ranges separated by huge valleys like this one. 

One of the must see sights from Phoenix to Sedona is Montezumas castle. It once was a village of about 35 people built on the side of a cliff. Access was by climbing long ladders which could be pulled up to prevent attacks. That's it behind me. It was abandoned in the 1100's. I gotta admit, the Anasazi cliff dwellings in Colorado were more impressive; see our blog of our trip to Texas. Still, something else off the old bucket list. 

After leaving I-17 and heading toward Sedona, we are starting to notice the terrain is changing. More vertical slopes and the soil is getting redder. 

Right in the town of Sedona is this rock formation called Bell Rock. Very impressive. 

The town sits right in the middle of mountains and rock formations like this. Everywhere you look are scenes like this. Its probably one of the most beautiful areas we been to.  

Here is part of the town and the view they have. What a great spot.

A lot of the buildings here are made of the same red clay and blend into the landscape. Its a very lovely and clean town. A lot of tourists though. I guess other people have heard of it as well. 

Grammie packed a nice picnic lunch and we found a lovely town park to stop and enjoy our lunch and the scenery. 

That rain storm we had in Casa Grande dumped over a foot of snow in Sedona. Some of it is still melting. Glad we weren't here during the storm; all the roads were closed for nearly 2 days. 

We decided to take a back road heading home. It was only a few miles longer than the interstate and promised more scenery. It was all of that. Our first indication was the sign stating no vehicles over 40 feet long. This was Jerome, and old mining town. The town is all switchbacks and we must have reversed direction about 6 times as we climbed through the town. Some streets were too narrow to pass another vehicle but , thankfully, we seemed to be the only ones on the road. Hmmm. 

A rest side stop just above Jerome allowed the car to cool down and for Grammie to buy some new jewelry. Ask her to see them when you see her. The native lady sitting made the jewelry on the reservation. 

We climbed to over 7100 feet after leaving Jerome. I can see why those in a hurry might choose the interstate. That snow that dropped on Sedona is still around at this altitude. It was a beautiful drive although it did take about 2 hours longer this way. Another great drive in a beautiful country.

One of the reasons we decide to stay in Phoenix is because they were having an RV rally at the time we were passing by. It was at the Phoenix racetrack where NASCAR races are held. Its a huge place and seats about 90,000 during a race. We spent the day seeing lots of vendors and buying a few necessities. Imagine our surprise when we spotted Harveys smaller brother in the parking area. We've never seen one that looks like Harvey before and now we've seen 2 this trip, amazing. Still smaller but in better shape than the last one we saw in Yuma. That made our day. We'll soon be on our way to our next stop; we're planning on staying at Flagstaff so we can go to the Grand Canyon but, its higher in Flagstaff than the 7100 feet we were at and they had 3 feet of snow during that storm. Here's hoping that its warmed up there and the roads to the Grand Canyon are open.

Casa Grande Arizona

After leaving our old friends in Yuma we're going to visit our Saskatchewan friends, Dick and Barb, that we visited last fall. They're staying at a large RV Resort at Casa Grande. Here's a nice break along the way; very deserty isn't it?

Just after lunch we arrived at our home for the next few days. I just love the southwest style, don't you? Its a lovely resort with pools, exercise room and lots of things to do. Our friends know how to pick em.

We're getting pretty good at moving so we're set up and relaxing in an hour or two. We usually have a drink to help relax after a long days drive but its only 1 PM so I guess we'll wait. But not too long. Fortunately my friend Dick likes scotch as well.

This is our friends site, just across the road from us, very handy. The only problem is, they're not there. Well, actually, we spent the first day here with them and went out for supper where we caught up on all the latest news. They had let us know weeks ago that they had to leave early, something about farming or something. So we had a good visit and when I got up at 6:30 the next morning they had already left. No time to wear out our welcome, that's for sure.

So, we'll just make our own fun while we're here. First thing I do every morning is make a coffee and go for a walk around. I visit here first. There's always something that needs dumping or recycling so a walk here starts my day. Pretty exciting so far.

There's a great cactus garden just inside the park so a walk through there is in order. There's not much colour but cactus is something we don't see back home so it's fascinating to look at all the different varieties. Can you spot the pretty blue flower?

We're enjoying the park, its clean and well looked after. It looks like this cactus feels the same. I've never seen one in the wild that looks this fat and sassy. Those arms above my head are bigger than me and probably weigh 4 times as much. Saguaro cactus absorbs water during the wet season and expands as it fills then starts to shrink as the water is used. Apparently, they will absorb water until they collapse under their own weight. I guess you wouldn't want to water them too much.

The dry winter is ending and some of the cacti are in bloom. The colours are even more beautiful because of the lack of other colours and the dry brown earth.

When we're not hiking the park (which takes 1.5 hours at a good pace) we're either reading or Grammies working on one of her crafts. Since we got here its been in the 90F range (35C) in the afternoon so its too hot to walk around and Harvey's too hot to sit in so we sit outside in the shade. Soon we'll be heading northward and may looking back fondly on this heat before we get home. From here we're heading to Phoenix AZ to meet some other friends (hope they're there :-) ). Stay tuned.