Weekend Road Trip: Arizona Revisited

 

Turn up the A/C because this week we’re headed to Arizona’s Painted Desert. First stop, Meteor Crater.

Meteor Crater is located just off Interstate 40 near Flagstaff. Drive twenty miles to the east and you can stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona (You have to be an Eagles fan to get that one).

Fifty-thousand years ago, a 150 foot wide meteortite struck the earth at 40,000 miles per hour. The result – a 700 foot deep crater (it’s 550 feet deep today) that’s 4,000 feet across and 2.4 miles in circumference.  In the photo above you can see an observation platform in the lower right corner. That tiny yellowish speck at the end of the platform is a full-grown man.

The Painted Desert stretches from the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest, covering nearly 94,000 acres.

Petrified tree bridge

 

 

 

 

I’m visiting with the grandson this weekend, so I reached back into the archives for this post. We’ll be back on schedule Monday with a special guest blogger.