The day started in the low 30's as usual, and we took our time getting started and heading west on I40. Becky spotted a sign to Meteor Crater, which she had seen from the air when she was a bit younger, and it was only 5 miles off the highway. What a great find! It's quite fascinating, to see how a meteor only 150' across could do such incredible damage. When it impacted 50,000 years ago, it weighed several hundred thousand tons, and struck the plain with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. The crater it carved was over 700' deep, and 4000 feet across. The three photos above show Becky with Katahdin sitting on the rim; a second photo of the pit, where you can see some excavation at the bottom. The third photo is a closeup of the excavation area, and though it's barely visible in the lower right corner of the excavation (right in the center of the photo), there is a 6 foot cutout of an astronaut with an American flag to give perspective.
They have a very informative museum regarding this crater and others, and a 10" animated movie of the history of the crater. We really enjoyed the stop!
We changed our plans on where we were heading for the night, and went to the old Route 66 town of Williams and a great RV park, the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. It was a short driving day for us, and we spent the afternoon cleaning the RV, doing laundry, and letting the dogs enjoy the crisp clean air at 6000 feet!
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