Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Meteor Crater

For a while now Chet has been wanting to go on a road trip. I'm not sure why, because my idea of a good time is not sitting in a car for hours at a time looking at nothing. But Chet suggested that we do a road trip through California, up the PCH, because then we would all get what we wanted-- a road trip and a Disneyland trip. ;)

We left Friday when the kids got out of school and made our way towards the coast. San Diego was our first destination but from our house that is a 13 hour drive. No way we were doing that in one day! So we drove to Phoenix and spent the night.

As we were driving through Arizona we saw signs for the "Meteor Crater". Chet got really excited and decided this was something that we needed to see. We took a slight detour and headed towards the crater. Not until we were almost there did a sign inform us that it closed at 7. It was 6:55. We decided to go anyway and made it just in time. As long as you are in by 7 you can stay until 7:30. We skipped the museum and headed straight for the crater.

Fifty thousand years ago a meteor travelling 26,000 MPH hit the earth. The hole it left is 550 feet deep and nearly a mile across! It is a very grand sight...


Meteor Crater from the sky.



That rock jutting out of the top is the size of a 2 story house!



There are several observation decks to view the crater from. It was quite windy at the top deck.


You could see for miles from the top deck. The view was amazing!


Harris wanted to take a picture next to this holey rock to send to Auntie Lindsay...

Beautiful Liv posing on the middle deck.

I'm glad that we stopped to see the crater. After all it isn't always about the destination but the journey.

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Love it! Tell Harris that Auntie LIndsay says EWWWW!!!

Tonia said...

My dad would always stop and see things along the way to our destination. Brings back memories!He always used my mom as an excuse, that she had to walk around because of her back. It at times would seriously add a couple of hours to the drive time. But, we always learned something new and like this crater, some of the stops were awesome!