This weekend was supposed to be a camping trip out to some hot springs, but things didn't go as planned. While doing an oil change and diagnosing a few things on the truck I managed break a $200 part, which left me rushing around for most of the day finding somebody who had one in stock, and then installing it.
Then it started raining. At that point we decided to call the camping trip a bust this week, and sat wondering what we were going to do on Sunday. After looking at maps of AZ for a while DaNece came up with the idea of going to Meteor Crater. Since neither of us had ever been, the matter was quickly settled.
We hopped in the MR2 and spent two hours goofing off as we wound our way east on the 40. At last we arrived, paid the entrance fee of $15 per adult, and proceeded to be awed by the power of a rock from space to lay waste to the ground:
To give a sense of scale, that little gray patch down there has a cutout of an astronaut that is 6' tall. Here is a closer view (along with some real people who were industrious enough to hike down):
DaNece wasn't too keen on the idea of hiking down 500+ ft. and a half a mile to the center of the crater, so we opted to enjoy the view from the observation deck. They did have a bunch of telescopes setup to view points of interest throughout the crater:
Yep the view from the deck was very nice:
And thanks to the joys of not-so-modern evolution, my monkey arms allow for taking pictures of us together:
And I even managed to grab a decent HDR:
Of course I failed entirely to consider taking a panoramic shot, because I'm not all that bright apparently. :)
All in all, it was exactly what you expect: a big hole in the ground.
And as neat as a big hole in the ground is, I was more jazzed about the Press-A-Penny machine they had. I seriously turn into a 5 year old around those things, begging for quarters and pennies. :)
After the crater we drove a few remaining miles to Winslow to grab a late lunch. We ate at the 'Falcon Cafe' which had, no joking, the BEST white gravy I have had in Arizona. SOOOO good that we ended up dunking our french fries in it in true heart-debilitating fashion.
Then it was a few more hours of highway travel filled with lots of book reading for me, and driving for D. A good day!
2 comments:
That's a lot of pics of DaNece! Nice. That one you have of the two of you that someone else took is also really good.
White gravy is yuuuuum. We make a point to have it numerous times every year in Texas for the holidays because no one can really make it right in Cali. Need to learn how to make my own!
That crater, and really any meteor crater, will always remind me of this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091276/
You probably never saw it, since we're a decade apart in age, but there was a huge crater in that movie where the ship had landed and it just always stuck with me.
Melissa - Yeah, lots of pics of D. She was in a confident mood, which is way more fun to photograph that some hole in the ground. :)
Good white gravy is hard to find in our area as well. I'm going out to Oklahoma to see family for thanksgiving, and I'm totally jazzed for biscuits and gravy, with grits!!!! SSSSSSOOOOOOOO good over there. :)
And I have seen the flick, but I was just a wee pup, and can't recall much of it.
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