The last few times I've made the drive across Arizona I've considered taking the time to check out the big meteor crater. I thought it would have a cool name or be buried deep in some national park so I never really looked into it. Imagine how excited I was to find out that not only does it have a very straight forward name (Meteor Crater) but that it's right of I-40. And since if figured so heavily in the finale to Starman I knew I had to go check it out. So, with that in mind I woke up bright and early and we hit the road. The weather turned kind of bad right around the AZ border which is a bummer because we went right through the painted desert and skirted monument valley but missed a lot of scenery because of some snow and low, kind of ominous clouds. And it got cold again. The crater trip was looking kind of like a long shot. We seemed to clear the storm though and as we passed through the other side it got really pretty. We were in a clear spot but all around were big storms and as we came through the passes we'd be able look into the valleys and see the rain coming down on the horizon. Pretty dramatic stuff for someone used to 360 days of sunshine a year. Good news is we finally made it to the crater. Pretty overpriced at $15.00 each but we figured we're never going to make it back so... The museum was fairly informative. Interestingly we were listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Almost Everything (Thanks again to Arthur and Liza, I loved In a Sunburned Country) in which he discusses the crater in a portion about extinctions and the part cosmic impacts play in them. As an aside, I really liked this book to. It makes you feel very lucky to be alive. It was cold and windy so they cancelled all of the walking tours of the rim and closed the topmost observation deck which was kind of a bummer. With the tour I think it would have been worth the bucks. If you want to see more check out their website: www.meteorcrater.com . It's a big hole in the earth to say the least. After that we got back on the road and drove into Kingman. Also a very pretty drive through some forests and hills. This will be our last night on the road since we plan to make it back to LA tomorrow evening.
In case you don't know where to take your picture from. This was at an "Indian" trading post along the freeway. As you get into AZ there are many more and they just get more elaborate with teepees and wildcats outside. By the time we saw those though it was snowing. Big lumps of snow that blew around.
Pic through the windshield. I took a lot of these and they never turn out as good as the view. But you keep trying.
The courtyard of the crater museum had this big window overlook of the valley. Kind of goofy but it was a great view.
Jessica and the other freezing tourist family.
And finally, Meteor Crater!
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