Again, we were up and at them early this morning. Stopped the night before and got more food, etc. as we had some drivining but also were going to be far away from towns.
We had coffee and muffins in the room while we got ready as this hotel didn't have breakfast. We got on the road for the short jaunt of about 45 minutes to Meteor Crater.
The low rise on the left is actually the rim of the crater. This was from about 10 miles away, maybe 12. I didn't notice it last time I came 25 years ago until I got alot closer. It's several hundred feet high.
When you stand on the edge of the crater, there is no frame of reference and you think, oh. it's not that big. Then the tourguide points to a tiny rock on the rim and says it's the size of a two story house. It's close to a mile wide rim to rim. Lot's of cool history, it is privately owned Natural Landmark, so not part of the Park Service.. about 50,000 years ago, a 150 foot chunk of iron and nickel blasted the hole into the earth at 26,000 MPH. They have a chunk they found a dozen or so miles away in the museum.
This open window looking out across the plain looked like a painting in real life. Its actually an opening in the wall. Kinda had a Wes Anderson feel to it. I liked it. It's a cool spot, worth the stop, but 2 hours maybe a tad more is plenty to see everything about the crater.
Here is a good overview video of the site and some of its history
We were back on the road before noon and I jumped off a few exits early to catch about 10 miles or so of the historic ride. There were practically no cars on it until we got into the built up area. Saw some folks posing with their convertible at another of these signs. We stopped for gas and another run into the grocery store as we had run out of a couple of items overnight.
Back north on US 89 to the reservation and then we made a left onto AZ 64.
Looking at the map above this is the first red arrow on the right. It is outside the park and I thought it was part of the Grand Canyon, but it is not. It is the Little Colorado River Gorge and it does feed into the park itself. I'm pretty sure this in on Navajo land as we passed several roadside vendors selling jewelry and art. I wanted some, but I had zero room in my bag for anything. All I bought were a couple of fridge magnets and a t-shirt.
Panaroma from the east watch tower and JT's first view of the canyon. This is the other arrow on the map. I was a little concerned with the rain the day before, but as you can see the visibility was outstanding.
On my previous two trips I drove up from the south from Williams. AZ. This is a great way to come into the park (or leave). My manager at work suggested that I take it and boy was he on the money.
Here we are waiting for our turn to go up in the watchtower. It's 70 feet high and there are a lot of paintings on the walls inside it that tell stories. We could have spent hours in it, but you get 20 minutes and then the next group comes through. This picture is looking to the north rim.
Phone reception was not very good in the park and I was concerned about our reservation (there was no problem, but recalling an experience from 1990 at the lodge in Yosemtie I had unfounded concerns but we were G2G). I also forgot that AZ does NOT do daylight savings time, so I thought it was an hour later than it really was.
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