Day 54 - “Serendipity” (Tonight we are in Williams, AZ)

The camping Bible.

When we made some tentative plans for this trip, Meteor Crater Monument was not on our list.  We are using the Good Sam book to pick our campsites and it lead us to the Meteor Crater Monument RV park (good rating, good 

I know it's just a big hole in the ground, but
it's a very impressive hole in the ground.

distance from where we wanted to stay to get to Williams, Arizona, gateway to the Grand Canyon).  It was there that we heard about this crater.  Well sir, it was well worth the trip.

"On a clear day, you can see forever."

They say 2,000,000 people can watch 20 football
games going on at the same time inside the crater.
That's a big place down there!

Meteor Crater is the best preserved meteor crater in the world and the first to be definitely proven to be caused by a meteorite impact.   






It is about 5 miles off of I-40, in the middle of the high desert, and the sights are awesome ( a word we use a lot but don’t know any other way to describe it).  

Follow the leader. (And what a sky!)

We're at the edge of the crater and had to look
up and down to keep from tumbling over!

The day was beautiful, warm in the sun and cool as the clouds came over.  We saw a video of the probable impact of the meteor, and took the tour around the rim of the crater.  




It is very prominent on the landscape;  550 feet deep and about 3/4 mile across.  The impact threw tons of rock up and away and exposed layers of prehistoric rock strata (see some of the pictures).  

Aren't we just the cutest in our matching hats!

We had a great guide for the walk around the rim and learned that it was an on-going geological study. 

The largest chunk of the meteor that caused
the crater.  So dense it weighs 1440 lbs.

This is a huge range -
something like 300,000+ acres.

We left there about mid-day and drove to Williams, Arizona where we will stay for 3 days as we explore the Grand Canyon.  








                                       This “campground” is a somewhat sterile but really nice place (the bathrooms are first class) and is a good place to base our travels.   

Can you believe it!

Sorry it's blurry - the elevation
must be getting to me!

We’ll drive 60 miles north tomorrow to get to the canyon.  We tried to get a campground at the canyon but were told that they are reserved 6 months in advance.

Home sweet Grand Canyon home.

Tonight we are having soup and what is left of our Subway sandwich from lunch.  Tonight's entry is a joint effort with no color delineation (if that is a good use of that word).   




Tomorrow we visit the Grand Canyon and on Sunday we will explore this sweet little town of Williams, whose main street is Route 66!

Shabbat Shalom,  Davis and Heather . . .

Glad it wasn't raining at this time (it started about
1 hour after we finished the tour!  What timing.

P.S. One interesting fact we learned today:  this white, powdery stuff called Coconino Sandstone is usually found at least 500 feet below the surface.  The impact, which lasted all of 10 seconds, flipped the layers of the area so that the top was on the bottom and the bottom was on the top.  A company thought the white powder would make a great scrubbing cleanser and tried to market it.  Guess what they called it - - - - COMET (ha).  After a while they decided to use another substance that worked better, but kept the name.  When this Coconino Sandstone is subjected to a heavy rainstorm it becomes quicksand.  The Astronauts found this out the hard way as they used this area to practice identifying impact craters on the moon.