What a DAY!!!

After spending the night in Winslow AZ we carefully pulled out taking evasive maneuvers by driving around several different blocks a few times,  Mary’s head was on a swivel watching to see if we were being followed, we hit the interstate doing 98. One can never be tooo careful in this secret stuff, you know.

Our first stop of the day was at Meteor Crater, now that’s one big hole in the ground. We have driven past it a couple of times and never got a chance to stop in.

A guess on my part, it’s like looking across the Ohio River at Louisville KY, I think that’s about the same distance from one side of the crater to the other. It was an informative experience. It’s also where they trained the astronauts for the moon landing.

The crater is so big and deep, they have a cardboard cutout of an astronaut standing besides a 3 x 5 flag and you can not see them with the naked eye.

Leaving, had we still been driving 98 we might have had some beef on the grill.

More gooooo below.

From there we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument. The parking lot is small and it’s a popular spot near Flagstaff AZ. I don’t know it they turn people away or not, my guess is, yes they do.

WOW!! Steps, steps, and more steps. It’s a nice wide paved loop hike, the sign said 1 mile but somehow we walked about a mile and half. First you go down a few zillion steps then on the return up, I think they must offer a 2 for 1 spacial on the steps going back up. Well worth the stop, if you can take the steps, the loop takes you, touching distance, past several cliff dwellings. Interesting tidbit, there is no year round water in the canyon, the current theory is they stored water in large jars.

More goo below.

After a few more evasive maneuvers we went to Sunset Crater National Monument. The drive through the lava fields and volcanos, was very interesting and still after all this time, many areas were still void of vegetation. Mostly in areas that looked like deep black sand.

More words below.

From the coolness of the mountains we entered the arid dry planes to check out some more pueblos. These were all built on tops of hills for good views of the surrounding areas.

It was all down hill after that, as we headed from coolness Flagstaff to scorching heat Phoenix. We stopped for the night about 1/2 way.