Holy Meteor Batman!

On our way to the Grand Canyon from Winslow yesterday, we stopped off at one of the world's largest and best preserved meteor impact craters. I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw this on the map, but I can honestly say that it is well worth the $15 price of admission.

From the photo below you can see how massive this crater really is. For some perspective, the dark rectangular area at the 7 o'clock position is a parking lot and the black line curving away from that is the two-lane road that connects to the Interstate.


So here are the numbers for those of you nerds out there:
- The impact occurred 50,000 years ago
- The meteor was traveling at 40,000 miles per hour
- The meteor was only 150 feet in diameter
- The explosion was equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT
- 175 million tons of rock was displaced due to the impact
- The crater is 4,000 feet across and 55o feet deep

If you ever find yourself in the Flagstaff, Arizona area, you must make time to visit this place. There is a little museum and a 30-minute movie that really makes the whole experience a lot of fun, not to mention very interesting.

Having Fun in Sedona

This is the morning of our third day in beautiful Sedona, Arizona. Unfortunately, we have had uncooperative weather so far. It's been raining here almost non-stop since we arrived Thursday afternoon. But we have still had fun so far. Even though it was raining, we spent our first day walking around town, we ate at a good restaurant, and we even bought a few trinkets for friends and family.

This was the view from our balcony on Friday morning, our second day in Sedona.

Since we figured it would be raining most of the day yesterday, we decided to take a road trip to try to escape the weather. So we jumped in the car and hit the road, stopping in Winslow, Meteor Crater, Flagstaff, and the Grand Canyon. More posts will follow describing those adventures. Stay tuned...